Counting the cost of early school leaving

Providing an array of personal supports, signposted choices and pathways, re-entry opportunities at numerous points into a variety of alternative settings – both in education and employment – are key ingredients.

A logical, cost-effective and timely approach to this issue would be the development of a national Youth Commitment, which has been supported by the OECD. This proposal is aimed at young people under the age of 20 who have left school without completing Year 12 and who are not in full-time work and not studying.

It would assist early school leavers to either:

• return to school or its equivalent in order to complete Year 12; or
• obtain an education and training qualification that is at an equivalent level such as a TAFE certificate or an apprenticeship; or
• obtain a full-time job that is linked to education and training.

Early school leavers would have a guaranteed access to two or perhaps three years full-time education equivalent to the completion of Year 12, which they could put together by combining a variety of options from schools, other providers and accredited on-the-job training.

Transition brokers would be placed in at least every government secondary school to work with young people, especially potential early school leavers, and enable them to access the Commitment.

The Commitment would be delivered through locally based community partnerships of local governments, schools and their School Councils, TAFE, Job Network brokers, Centrelink offices, employers, training organisations, unions, community agencies, and others.

The Commitment would cost an additional $350 million a year, or a 0.1 per cent increase in government outlays on education as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product. To a large extent this is a cost that would be incurred in any case by governments if the young person coming under the scope of the Commitment had decided to remain at school.

It would ensure that communities absolutely minimized the potential for any young person leaving school to ‘fall through the cracks’, and would enable each young person to make an informed choice about his or her future.

The Commitment makes sense at every level: it offers better service, better outcomes and it is affordable. Indeed the 'do nothing' alternative is in effect much more costly.