Australia needs a new national threshold educational qualification

Need for direct measures

Direct measures of these skills are far better predictors of successful participation in society than previous indicators such as education credentials. Broad based literacy and numeracy tests are now available. The international Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey is a large-scale, comparative survey designed to identify and measure a broader range of skills in the post compulsory school age population (ages 16-65) (see http://www.ets.org/all/survey.html ). These skills refer to problem solving, team work and information technology as well as literacy and numeracy. However, Australia is not participating in the 2002 survey round.

The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey is administered as a paper-and-pencil test, using standardised administration procedures in a household setting. The total length of the test is likely to take 60 minutes on average. In addition to the test, there is a background questionnaire that takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.

The skills directly measured are: Prose and Document Literacy, Numeracy, and Analytical Reasoning. In addition, there is a Background Questionnaire, which collects participant information and indirectly measures two other skill domains as well: Teamwork and ICT Literacy.

These questionnaires, adapted to the Australian context, could be made freely available to enable people to locate themselves on an internationally recognised five-point scale denoting proficiency in literacy and numeracy.

Alternatives to existing education structures needed

One reason for young people not completing high school is their rejection of the institution as a whole, not just the curriculum. There are two responses policy makers can make to this. One is to create alternative school structures at upper secondary level. In most OECD countries, unlike Australia, separate institutions for upper secondary education are the norm. Public private partnerships with local employers to develop specialised learning centres could give further support to creating separate structures.

Another way is to set up new structures within existing schools such as career academies. Career academies in the US are organised as a school-within-a-school in which students stay with a group of teachers over three or four years in high school. Such arrangements are often referred to as "small learning communities." The effect is a more personalised and supportive learning environment for students and teachers.

Learners’ Agency

However, it should also be possible for early school leavers to acquire the desired learning outcomes in other non-institutional ways. For some young people, a combination of learning on the job supported by some formal learning (perhaps in a user friendly community education centre) may be more effective. This learning needs to be verified by giving the early school leaver the opportunity to have their acquired skills assessed by an independent agency.

Such an independent agency could also act as a broker to negotiate on behalf of the individual with education and training providers to gain entry to or appropriate credit for this learning. Such an agency needs to be funded independently of the Budget. Its funding needs to be generated through its own activities to give it the autonomy required to play an advocacy role. One way to do this would be to charge for the assessment services it offers.

Conclusion

There is a fundamental inequality built into our education system. Large numbers of young people are leaving the school system ill prepared to survive in a modern economy and society. In 2000, while nearly two thirds of Year 12 leavers (64 per cent) went on to further education, only 37 per cent of those who did not complete Year 12 did so. As noted above, those who leave school early are much more likely to find it difficult to get work and keep it.

Ensuring that all young people attain a threshold qualification of Year 12 completion or an equivalent vocational qualification should be recognised as a fundament entitlement of citizenship. The progress of governments and the community in ensuring that this entitlement is achieved for each individual needs to be monitored independently of those responsible for funding education. Direct measures of skills acquisition also need to be used to act as some form of reality check on how effective higher levels of education attainment are in serving young people’s needs.