Winter 2007

Careers and transition

What career advisers should know

How important is the role of VET in helping young people to make the transition from school into work? Davinia Woods looks at the current research and finds useful information for career advisers.

The VET system provides training across a wide range of subject areas and is delivered through a variety of training institutions and enterprises (including to apprentices and trainees). The majority of the training undertaken by students aged 24 years and below is accredited and provides competency-based training that is developed by industry. The approval of Commonwealth funding from 1996 resulted in VET becoming available to school students within senior secondary schooling as well as still being available to people of all ages outside the school system.

With the recent availability of appropriate data, Australian researchers are only beginning to track young people through to their mid-twenties to report on the role of VET in helping young people’s transition into work. This research is summarised in a report published by National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), At a glance.

Is VET helping the transition?

So how do VET programs effect young people’s transition into work? The research’s first critical message is that overall, in terms of employment levels, some VET is better than no post-school education and training. This is true for early school leavers and year 12 completers.

However, it is also apparent that young people participating in VET are taking various routes to employment—and some pathways are rockier and longer than others.

The research shows that for students studying Certificate I and II courses, it can often take more than six months to obtain employment. Many of these students need to study at a higher level before they can achieve the job they want. This is despite most young people reporting that they undertook the Certificate I or II course for employment related (and not further study related) reasons.

Apprenticeships, traineeships and other VET programs linked to the workplace are providing the most rapid transitions. This is not surprising as an employment relationship is established as a matter of course in these programs. However, it appears to be a matter of speed of transition rather than final outcome. By two and a half years after the initial training, employment levels for participants in all qualifications tend to even out.

What role does school VET play?

The research suggests that school VET programs also play a role in helping young people’s transition from school into work or further study. School VET programs are a particularly effective way for students to test career options. Researcher Stephen Billet in Informing post-school pathways: Investigating school students’ authentic work experiences, notes that analysing and reflecting on paid work experience through classroom activities can also provide useful information when the time comes to consider post-school options. Reflecting on existing paid work of students is also a lot easier than having to find work placements!

By tracking young people, various researchers have concluded that school VET programs are particularly effective in helping the transition into post-school activities for early school leavers. For example, NCVER research found that school VET participants who left school after completing year 11 had a much easier transition than their peers who did not undertake school VET programs.

In terms of pathways, school VET programs provide a clear pathway into further study or employment for boys studying in the areas of building and engineering and school-based apprentices and trainees.

For many other school VET participants, there is no real link between VET studied at school and VET outside school. More school VET students tend to study Certificate I and II qualifications and in areas such as information technology (boys and girls), management and commerce (boys) and hospitality (girls), compared with students of a similar age outside of school. The mismatch between VET inside schools and VET outside schools is particularly evident for girls, who tend to avoid the VET programs they studied at school.

Researchers Stephen Lamb and Margaret Vickers, in Variations in VET provision across Australian schools and their effects on student outcomes, examined the issue of whether school VET should be better aligned to VET outside of school. They concluded that school VET programs more closely aligned to the TAFE system typically result in smoother transitions into work. On the other hand, school VET programs more closely aligned to the school system (this includes programs that count towards the senior secondary certificate and in areas such as information technology and hospitality) tend to have a greater impact on influencing students to remain in school to complete year 12.

* ‘Success’ is defined as full-time post-school engagement in employment or learning or part-time work combined with part-time study.

Source: Alison Anlezark, Tom Karmel and Koon Ong, Have school vocational education and training programs been successful?

Table 1: Predicted probabilities of successful outcomes for year 11 completers in 2001, the year after leaving school (%)

Conclusion

By tracking young people, Australian researchers are now able to conclude that VET assists the transition into work. However, the smoothness of this transition depends on the nature of the VET program undertaken and the time since participating in the VET program. Career development services can have some impact on transitions by better informing prospective students of the typical outcomes and further study required after completing particular VET programs. As researcher Roger Harris notes in his research on pathways, Crazy paving or stepping stones, the students who experience multiple pathways are generally not aware of the career development services available or do not think they need them.

This article is based on NCVER’s At a glance, which summarises the findings from research on the role that VET plays in helping young people’s transition into work. Copies of the NCVER publication can be accessed from www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1725.html

References

Anlezark A, Karmel T and Ong K (2006). Have school vocational education and training programs been successful?, NCVER, Adelaide.

Billet, S (2006). Informing post-school pathways: Investigating school students’ authentic work experiences, NCVER, Adelaide.

Harris, R (2006). Crazy paving or stepping stones, NCVER, Adelaide.

Lamb S and Vickers M (2006). Variations in VET provision across Australian schools and their effects on student outcomes, NCVER, Adelaide.

Davinia Woods is a research officer at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au