Page 1969 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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community and they will continue to contribute to our community for perhaps as long as 70 or even 80 years beyond their current ages. I think it is critical that we put in place the right frameworks and the right educational system to ensure that these people are best placed to serve our community well into this century.
I think we have to be very cautious when we are setting targets like 95 per cent for graduating from year 12. That in itself is not necessarily good or necessarily bad. What we have to ensure is that the education we are offering to 95 per cent of those people is the right education for 95 per cent of them. The last thing we want is to put into place the target of 95 per cent graduation for year 12 if that is not the best thing for them. We have to make sure that the curriculum in those schools, in the colleges or whatever the comparable institution is, is actually something that is going to enable them to serve their community and to go on to bigger and better things.
I fear that in the past, and not just in the ACT but in all jurisdictions all over the world, we have often had arbitrary figures, arbitrary targets of year 10 or year 12 graduates that might have been easy to set and easy to measure by law makers and regulators but which, in actual fact, may not have been in the best interest of all students.
As long as the equivalent level of education—equivalency of a year 12 certificate—is actually something that is going to support the young people then it is something that we as a party I am sure would support. However, it is a complex issue and I hope that no-one in this place would rule out all other options such as apprenticeship training and trade training.
Mr Barr: That is why it is education training for work. It is not just keeping people in school. I think I said it about five times.
MR COE: Yes. It is good for the minister to go over his 12-minute speech again. I did listen and I did hear it. I did not have a go at the minister. I did simply state that it is very important that we do put on the record our support for making people the best prepared to go into the workforce, best prepared to go into further education and the best prepared to contribute to their community.
I digress slightly to talk about apprenticeships and the contribution that young apprentices make to our community. For too long I think people who have not gone to university have been seen as failures or have not been seen as being as good as those who go on to university. Elitist attitudes like that do a tremendous disservice not just to people who do apprenticeships but also to people who do university. University is one way of gaining certain skills, a certain education; apprenticeships are another way; going straight into the workforce is another way. I think it is very important that we do remember this because too often we have an elitist attitude and university graduates are seen as superior.
Going on to a few other areas related to youth, I think it is very important that we remember that youth policy is not just building skateboard parks. It is not just treating with people who are not on the straight and narrow. Youth policy is much, much broader and I think there is scope to integrate youth policy into education policy much more so than has been the case in the past. Education policy is almost a unilateral
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