Opinion Piece in The Age Melbourne  (18 May 2018)

Jobs growth is not benefiting all people equally. Youth unemployment has remained in double digits for nearly a decade and in pockets, particularly across regional Australia, youth unemployment is above 20 per cent. This is in spite of the fact that nearly 90 per cent of young people are finishing school, and many are completing tertiary education.

While having a degree does improve employment opportunities in the long run, some young people fare better than others. For example, about half of all science graduates are only employed part-time four months after graduating and many of these (40 per cent) are working in fields unrelated to their degree. By contrast, courses with strong industry connections, such as engineering, and vocational education and training (VET) qualifications seem to result in good employment outcomes, with more than 86 per cent of VET students employed upon finishing training.

In this light, it is particularly concerning that recent Mitchell Institute modelling warns that we could see a total demise of our important VET sector if recent enrolment trends continue. It is astonishing our vocational sector continues to be dragged through the mud despite the vital role it has to play in Australia’s future.

Almost all new jobs will require post-school qualifications – about half of all new jobs will require a vocational qualification, while about half will require a university qualification.

One solution to help young people better transition to the workforce, as stated in the recent Gonski report, is to further embed capabilities in the curriculum. As science graduate employment rates exemplify, knowledge isn’t enough to secure a young person a job. They need to be able to apply their knowledge – communicate their ideas, work with other people and overcome challenges.

Capabilities are in the Australian curriculum but are addressed in varied ways across the country and often not prioritised as they do not count in high-stakes assessment.

Some students develop capabilities outside of school, in scouts, drama clubs and the like, but not all students have these opportunities. A focus on capabilities needs to continue in tertiary education, because it is vital that discipline-specific capabilities are developed, preferably in conjunction with industry, to ensure young people are job ready.

Another concept is to equip young people with the skills they need to create and manage their own employment. Entrepreneurial learning is being viewed as a promising approach to keep rural young people in their local area by helping bring jobs to their communities.

More nuanced career planning is essential to enable young people to navigate a complex employment landscape, including building financial literacy if they are to manage multiple employment arrangements.

We also need to do better at highlighting where various tertiary pathways can lead, and in particular areas of employment growth into the future. A key to all of this is reconceiving what a strong education system should deliver: success should be every young person being on a positive pathway at age 24, not a high score at the end of year 12.

Megan O’Connell is director of the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University.