Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

X, Y And Z: Three Decades Of Education, Employment And Social Outcomes Of Australian Youth, Sheldon Rothman, Kylie Hillman

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This paper focuses on three decades of findings from Australian longitudinal studies of adolescents and their transitions from secondary school to further education and training and the labour force. The presenters examine trends in young people’s participation in the post-compulsory years of school; completion of Year 12; participation in and completion of various forms of further education and training; employment rates and earnings; and leaving home and family formation. The data for this presentation come from a number of longitudinal survey programs, which are part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. The oldest cohort comprises young people who were …

Specifying And Assessing Knowledge And Skills For Life, Geoff N. Masters

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

In my presentation to this year’s Research Conference I will be taking as my starting point the proposition that a fundamental purpose of schooling is to provide every student with knowledge and skills to equip them for life beyond school. While acknowledging that schooling has broader purposes, I will argue that there are some fundamental understandings and skills that all students should develop during their school years, and that every student should be expected to demonstrate an acceptable level of these skills and understandings by the time they leave school.

An International Perspective On Civic And Citizenship Education: Exploring The Learning Context For Lower Secondary Students, Wolfram Schulz, Julian Fraillon

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

The purpose of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is to investigate, in a range of countries, the ways in which young people are prepared and consequently ready and able to undertake their roles as citizens. In pursuit of this purpose, the study will report on student achievement, student activities, value beliefs, behavioural intentions and attitudes related to civic and citizenship education. The collection of contextual data will help to explain variation in these outcome variables. This paper describes how the learning context for civic education is explored in the ICCS survey. It outlines the conceptual framework, the …

Touching The Future : Building Skills For Life And Work (Conference Proceedings), Australian Council For Educational Research (Acer)

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This conference addressed the theme of the skills and dispositions that young people need to participate effectively in work and society and the role of educators to nurture the development of those skills and dispositions.

The conference featured four keynote and 12 concurrent sessions. The full conference proceedings and individual papers, some PowerPoint presentations can be downloaded below. Podcasts of selected sessions are also available from this repository.

Assessing And Reporting Of Employability Skills Of Senior Secondary Students, Gabrielle Matters, David D. Curtis

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This paper traces the emergence of ‘life skills’ from being rather general and global prescriptions for educational change to specific lists of ‘skills’ that schooling, vocational and higher education should address. We focus specifically on the ‘key skills’ of the Employability Skills Framework (ESF) developed jointly by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) (ACCI & BCA, 2002). We propose a strategy for extending the definitions of the key skills to include personal, social and civic objectives. We also identify a sequence of challenges that schools and school systems must address in …

Indigenous Education, Imagining The Future - The Role Of Educators, Wayne Muir

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

Indigenous education has long been a focal point for educators. From the reviews of the mid-1980s, policy development in the late 1980s and since, Indigenous education has long challenged educators. The continued relevancy of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy, developed in 1989, demonstrates that improved outcomes in Indigenous education continues to be a goal beyond the reach of communities, education systems and governments. This paper discusses the policies underpinning Indigenous education and the challenges that continue to face educators. The new Council of Australian Government commitments provide educators with a renewed challenge. This paper also identifies …

Beyond ‘The Future Of’ Responding To The Civilisational Challenge, Richard Slaughter

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

Among an array of desirable ‘skills for life and work’ are those that relate to understanding the global context, the challenges visible there and the specific ways young people can be prepared for actively responding. Educators at every level need to move beyond tokenistic treatments of ‘the future’ (singular) to understand the ‘civilisational challenge’ facing us. In so doing, futures concepts, tools and other resources will be invaluable. This paper draws on some aspects of recent scientific research and sources within the broad futures literature to highlight aspects of the near-future environment. It then suggests a number of tasks for …

Pathways To Social And Emotional Wellbeing: Lessons From A 24-Year Longitudinal Study, Diana Smart

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

Commencing in 1983, the longitudinal Australian Temperament Project (ATP) provides a valuable lens through which to view the pathways taken by Australian children from infancy to adulthood, and the factors associated with positive or problematic development. The study is now in its 25th year and has completed 14 data collection waves. This paper provides an overview of ATP findings on young people’s wellbeing at 23–24 years of age, their engagement in risk-taking behaviours such as alcohol use and risky driving, and the nature of parent–child relationships over adolescence and early adulthood.

Young People And Social Inclusion: Challenges For Teaching, Terri Seddon

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

The Crounulla riots were a wake-up call for Australia. With a booming economy and an assertive government, the violence at Crounulla was a stark reminder that nations have to be made and remade culturally, as well as economically. An identity as citizen is as important as an identity as worker in forming sustainable imagined communities that can transcend and ameliorate socio-cultural divisions and conflicts. Yet being a citizen means more than simply belonging to a community. It means using power responsibly to further community (collective) action in pursuit of preferred goals. This paper examines the changing context of skill-building for …

The Intersection Of Vocational Interests With Employment And Course Enrolments, Jim Athanasou

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This presentation examines the role of interest in learning and career development. It is based on the view that one’s interest is a major factor in educational achievement. Moreover, interest continues to play a substantial role in career throughout the life span. Interest is related to work adjustment and is a key feature of job satisfaction for many individuals. Most people would be prepared to acknowledge that interest is important for learning and working, yet they may not have a clear understanding of the extent of that influence or the extent to which it is able to be expressed.

Round And Round Or Fully Rounded? How Can We Improve Youth Transitions?, Richard Sweet

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

Successful transitions from school to work result from a complex mix of institutional settings, opportunity structures and personal effectiveness. Policy needs to work on all of these simultaneously: Australia needs both systems to work and to be fair, and young people who are confident and competent. On the basis of school completion rates, and their consequences in terms of teenage unemployment and the youth labour market disadvantage, Australia performs relatively poorly compared to other advanced economies and has improved little over a long period. A wide range of innovative transition programs has had little impact. We need to shift to …

Some Reforms To Better Equip Young People For Tomorrow's World, Chris Robinson

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

The changing context of schooling is examined in this paper in terms of global changes and what impact these are having on the skills young people need to have. In particular, the way work is changing, and the skills and education young people need to have to maximise their economic opportunities is explored. The key issues are that high skill jobs requiring university or high level vocational qualifications now make up the majority of jobs and they are growing at twice the rate of other jobs in Australia. Young people with university or Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualifications (at …

Assessing Education And Training Requirements Against Uncertain Trends In The Labour Force, Gerald Burke

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

Data analysis of skill requirements and supply are undertaken to provide guidance to policy makers. This analysis includes information on future employment by occupation and qualification, on labour force participation and on shortages. These can provide a coherent overview of what is likely to occur if current trends or policy settings persist. However, future uncertainty and data limitations suggest this information is most useful in providing a broad context within which industry, employer and individual needs can be considered.

Quality Education And Quality Work, Julius Roe

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

This paper argues that there is no uniform trend to work which requires higher skills, higher levels of discretion and autonomy, increased teamwork, and increased multi-skilling. The link between increased opportunities for quality education and training and better quality work requires an integrated and new labour market, industry and education and training policies. The deregulatory and marketbased policies applied to education and training, labour market and industry funding and regulation over the past decade have had negative consequences. It is open to Australian governments to develop an integrated approach to industry, the labour market, and education and training that would …

Participation In The Classroom, Productivity In The Workforce — Unfulfilled Expectations, Stuart Macintyre

2008 – Touching the Future: Building Skills for Life and Work

In Australia, as in other countries, three public concerns about education can be discerned. One of them is concerned with work skills in the context of economic objectives of innovation and productivity. Another is concerned with life skills in the context of objectives of social sustainability and self-fulfilment. The third is concerned with the maintenance of cultural and intellectual standards – and has often been associated with criticism of educational progressivism. These concerns have informed Australian educational policy. The economic objective has been particularly influential in higher education; the social objective has informed school initiatives concerned with values education, and …