Shaping young people’s decisions about post-school pathways: societal sentiments versus informed perspectives

ABSTRACT

Both government reports and academic literature concur in claiming that the low standing of vocational education and training (VET) and the occupations it serves in the community is a major problem for increasing the engagement in this educational sector in an era of high aspiration. An initial analysis from a project capturing school students, school teachers and parents’ perspectives of what informs young people’s post-school choices found parents and teachers were key. Yet they often lacked informed and impartial exposure to or advice about VET and the occupations it serves. To identify whether this lack of familiarity was a key basis for shaping decision-making away from VET, a further analysis was undertaken drawing on the perspectives of vocational educators. That analysis showed, however, that exposure to VET and the occupations it serves does not, of itself, mean that the person providing advice is any more informed about or inherently encouraging of young people to engage in VET. Instead, vocational educators’ perspectives were more aligned with those of school teachers and parents of school-aged children than those of school students. The key finding here is that rather than relying upon the contributions that arise to engagement with familiars (i.e. parents and teachers), a process approach is required to provide impartial and comprehensive advice about and experiences with diverse post-school pathways and occupations to young people and to have mechanisms that allow their capacities, interests, and aspirations to be engaged with this advice.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-school pathways
• career choices
• young people’s decision-making
• senior schooling
• vocational education
• work life experience
• vocational educators

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anh Hai Le

Anh Hai Le is a lecturer and senior research assistant at Griffith University. Her research interest focuses on curriculum development in tertiary education, with a specific emphasis on the process of building knowledge through scholarly engagement with industry and higher education institutions. She has diverse experience in teaching research methodologies and curriculum development, across various disciplines in higher education sector, with postgraduate qualifications in Education, Linguistics, Tourism and Hospitality, also in Health and Community.

Stephen Billett

Stephen Billett is Professor of Adult and Vocational Education at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, a National Teaching Fellow, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Fulbright scholar and has honorary doctorate from Jyvaskala and soon from Geneva. He has worked in industry, as a vocational educator, educational administrator, teacher educator, professional development practitioner and policy developer in the Australian vocational education system and as a teacher and researcher at Griffith University.