Want a job? Change the subject (1 Viewer)

[McLake]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/09/29/1127804613428.html

The most practical HSC subjects may be less than useful in the real world. A study has found students who take clerical and service-industry courses are more likely to end up jobless.

The future unemployed are concentrated in a cluster of such subjects, the study found. Almost half those who studied subjects such as hospitality, retail operations and tourism failed to take up any further study or training after they left school.

The national research, conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research, examined the course choices made by 14,000 year 12 students in 1998 and in 2001. It found inappropriate subject selection led to a higher chance of unemployment in the long term.

Those most likely to go on to further study and secure employment included some advanced mathematics and physical sciences subjects in year 12. About half of the 41 per cent of students who studied vocational clerical and services subjects and undertook no post-school study or training were underemployed or unemployed a year later. The remaining half were concentrated in low-paid jobs.

The council's deputy chief executive officer, John Ainley, said the report did not suggest some courses led students on a path to nowhere. But there could be a case for schools focusing on fewer vocational subjects.

The president of the NSW Board of Studies, Professor Gordon Stanley, said some students might not have done the HSC at all had they not had access to a vocational education and training (VET) course. "All [VET students] would have achieved some workplace competencies … so it's not as if it's wasted time.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Mmm this is to be expected I think... you'd assume people who choose vocational subjects are not as likely to go on to university, and those who do go on to university you'd expect to have greater job prospects, in general.

I always regarded as rather suspect the amount of weight the Board of Studies placed on VET courses - saying they were specially "industry recognised" and such.

 

[braindrainedAsh]

This doesn't surprise me. Not to generalize, but from what I have seen you have to look at the types of students who usually take VET subjects.... they are usually the ones that otherwise would have dropped out in year 10, often lack confidence, aren't very academic, and in some cases are kind of lazy. If a motivated person with a bit of confidence etc chose to do a vet course then maybe they would have more job success than the average candidate. There are other qualities besides certificates which make you more or less employable, so I think a study like this doesn't really prove much. But I still think the courses fill a need and are important, and I do believe they keep people in school for longer which is a good thing. But also youth unemplyment is tough especially outside the city. I have friends who finished school with me two years ago now who haven't gone to uni but have done some additional tafe study who are still looking for a full time job, or in a couple of cases have recently lost their jobs and are trying to find a job at all. Most of them didn't do VET courses in the HSC, just normal subjects.

 

[loquasagacious]

As mentioned the clustering of the lowly motivated, lowly skilled, drop-outs, etc etc in the VET courses this doesnt suprise me.

It does remain a problem though if doing the courses has been useless to the students eg has not improved their prospects (low as they may be). This would indicate the courses to be useless.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

hmm, not too surprising. like braindrainedash said before a lot of the people who take these courses are, well, not exactly the brains of the outfit. that's not to say that all of those candidates are like that, because i have a few friends in vet courses who are actually very bright and motivated. but yeah, just generaly if you look at the people who take the courses you begin to see why they have no job prospects - because they lacked the necessary motivation to even do well at school, so what makes them think they'll go well in the real world? they could have chosen physics, chemistry, and extension everything, and i dont reckon their prospects would improve all that much. attitude counts for a lot.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

At my school the majority of people who did a tafe course like hospitality for their HSC were pretty dumb. That's probably why they don't take up any further study after the HSC.

 

[braindrainedAsh]

Yeah I don't really think the courses are that useless because I remember when we had school functions the people who did the hospitality/commercial cookery VET used to organize them and do the waiting and cooking and everything and they were always very well done so they must have learnt something, it's just it is hard for them to compete for jobs... even for casual jobs in hospitality, people want motivated people who speak well and have their wits about them etc.... the job market is very competitive. Also there are a lot of other issues at play, recruitment can often be classist/racist/biased in many ways so these people might be up against even more disadvantage. I don't really think this survey reveals much, something studying whether the skills learnt at these courses are the skills employers are looking for would probably be more valuable in assessing how worthwhile the VET courses are.