Page 4693 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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with the agreement reached by all states and territories under the national participation requirements on youth attainment and transitions and the funding associated with it. While the Greens are very supportive of ensuring that our young people have the opportunities to reach their potential, we do have some real concerns about the time allowed, again, by the commonwealth to enable proper research and consultation to implement possible new programs prior to the commencement of the “earn or learn” in 2010. There is very little detail around how it will be implemented, what happens to those who do not engage in the earn or learn approach and the implications for students, schools and tertiary education institutions, families, business and the community.
This is a most significant change in the way of skilling our young people in the 21st century, and it must mean we build a broad system which does not begin and end at the school gate but which embraces the tertiary education sector, alternative education programs, community organisations, families, small business and industry. It is wrong to expect school and tertiary education institutions to fix everything. Even with an education, it is not possible to solve social and unemployment issues.
In briefings we have had on this issue to date—and we thank the minister and his department for organising those briefings—there has been acknowledgement of the fact that a concerted effort will be required to ensure that the new system will not fail a considerable number of students in the 15 to 17-year-old-age bracket who will not engage in “earn or learn”. Advice we have had is that in the ACT there are potentially between 100 and 400 students in this group at present who are essentially not engaged in school, learning or employment. Our concern is that the earn or learn policy will not fit everyone. What happens to those who do not fit the new system, and how will the department of education manage this?
We were concerned also when we read this report in the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 October 2009 by Anna Patty, the education editor:
Government earn or learn policies are masking growing youth unemployment with new analysis showing more than 50,000 young people will no longer be included in statistics.
She went on to quote figures referred to by Maree O’Halloran, the Director of the Welfare Rights Centre, in recent Australian government Senate estimates hearings, showing that 66 per cent of the 82,612 youth allowance recipients in Australia who are under 21 and not students—a total of 54,523—have not completed year 12 or an equivalent qualification.
A research report released on 8 October 2009 by the Foundation for Young Australians reveals a sharp rise in the rate of youth disengagement from work and study. The report, which is titled How our young people are faring ’09, shows that the proportion of teenagers not learning or earning full time has jumped from 13.4 per cent a year ago to 16.4 per cent, the highest level since the recession of the early 1990s.
Dr Lucas Walsh, Director of Research at the Foundation for Young Australians, has said in assessing the findings in this report:
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