Should schools act as job agencies?
Echo Issue Outline: copyright © Echo Education Services
First published in The Echo news digest and newspaper sources index.
Issue outline by J M McInerney (with Internet sources in hypertext)
What they said ...
`For too long, schools have been isolated from the labor market .'
Dr David Kemp, federal Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training
`It's a bit rich to expect them [schools] to do what the Government and the private sector can't do themselves.'
Mr Mark Latham, federal Opposition spokesperson on Schools, Vocational Education and Training
On April 21, 1997, the Federal Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training, Dr David Kemp, announced, that as of March, 1998, schools would be able to act as employment agencies for students leaving school. The plan has met with support from some school principals and some state ministers for education, however, it has met with opposition from other education ministers, from some parent bodies and from teacher unions.
Background
The federal government plans to offer $200 million over 19 months to schools wishing to act as job agencies for students. Under the project, participating schools would be rewarded with funding for finding students jobs. Schools would receive an upfront payment for helping students look for work, then another payment when a job was found. Incentives would be built into the scheme for schools finding placements for students considered to be potentially among the long-term unemployed.
The project is expected to start in March next year. Any of Australia's 2,500 secondary schools will be able to tender to take part in the scheme. Private as well as public secondary colleges will be able to tender to offer this service.
Under the scheme schools would be invited to match school-leavers with vacancies among local employers. Each schools could also function as a `one-stop apprenticeship stop', helping employers create apprenticeships and traineeships.
The project targets the 60 per cent of Australian school-leavers who to not go on to university or TAFE courses.
The scheme to encourage secondary schools to function as employment agencies for school-leavers is part of a larger proposal of the Federal Government largely to abolish the CES (Commonwealth Employment Agency) and have its functions taken over by private operators.
Under the terms of the Reform of Employment Services Bill the Commonwealth Employment Service will be corporatised and subsequently known as Public Employment Placement Enterprise. It will compete with private job providers, Employment Placement Enterprises, to put job-seekers in work. Schools taking part in Dr Kemp's scheme would also act as competing job agencies.
Youth unemployment has become an entrenched problem in Australia, with joblessness among those aged 15 to 24 currently placed at 29.4 per cent.
In the United States there have also been attempts made to have schools become more actively involved in preparing students for the workplace and actually helping them find jobs. The American initiative, however, appears a more complete and integrated scheme that draws together work experience, workplace monitoring and instruction in workplace specific skills. Its transition element offers students assistance in finding jobs or moving into additional training or further education The scheme has been put in place under the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994.
There are numerous Internet sites devoted to the American School-to -Work scheme including a general information brochure and a site answering frequently asked questions about the project.
Arguments in favour of schools acting as job agencies for students
Dr Kemp has suggested that schools are well placed to act as employment agencies for school-leavers. It has further been claimed that the division between schools and the workplace is not a reasonable one.
Dr Kemp has stated, `For too long, schools have been isolated from the labor market .' Dr Kemp has also suggested that schools are not catering adequately for the majority of students, that 60 per cent of secondary students who do not go on to tertiary study.
Dr Kemp's criticism appears to imply that there should be curriculum changes so that schools better meet the full range of their students' needs. Dr Kemp has stated specifically that part of what this might involve would be establishing links between schools and employers.
Dr Kemp has also claimed that most teachers would `welcome the chance to play an active role in helping their students get jobs.' He has argued that schools already see this as a legitimate part of their function, claiming, `It is not a matter of passing the buck at all, this is something schools have recognised through the fact that they've got careers officers.'
Overall Dr Kemp's view appears to be that `Schools are well placed to build the bridges from the classroom to employment.' According to this line of argument, schools have a number of real advantages when trying to place young potential school-leavers in jobs.
One of the advantages schools are said to have is that they know the skills and aptitudes of their students well. It has been suggested that schools are thus in a good position to give students realistic job counselling and to match prospective employee with job vacancy more effectively than other agencies.
It has also been claimed that the recommendations schools make are likely to be given credence by employers. This claim has been made explicitly by the Minister for Education, Dr Kemp, who has been quoted as saying, `Many employers have been hesitant to take on young people ... but when a school vouches for a young person ... employers are often willing to create a job.'
It has also been argued that school resources would not be strained by schools taking on this additional function, as they would be financially rewarded for all young people whom they advised and for every young person whom they helped to place in a job. As an extension of this it has been noted that educating young people would remain the schools' primary function and not one that this proposal is intended it interfere with.
The Herald Sun in its editorial of April 23, 1997, has claimed, ` While nobody realistically argues with the sanctity of the classroom as a place of learning first and foremost, there can be little harm, and perhaps a great deal of good, in also using schools to prepare young adults for the real world awaiting them, a world where the ability to gain employment is paramount.'
Thus it has also been suggested that schools would be able to produce courses which dovetailed well with apprenticeship courses or that students might even be able to complete courses prior to leaving school which would give them credit towards apprenticeships. (This is already happening to some extent in some states.)
The federal government has claimed that the expertise of schools may well mean that they will be able to take a part in helping to `prevent many school-leavers becoming unemployed.'
Supporters of this scheme have noted that when it was trialled as a pilot at a Brisbane high school this year 141 jobs were found for school-leavers with the assistance of three employment specialists, including a full-time liaison officer with local business. Another pilot program in South Australia has also been claimed to have been successful.
Arguments against schools acting as job agencies for students
One of the major criticisms made of Dr Kemp's plan that schools function as employment agencies for recent school-leavers is that the scheme is likely to distract schools from their central role - to educate students.
The federal president of the Australian Education Union, Ms Sharan Burrow, has said that schools should have additional resources directed to them for education, not job placement. Similarly, the president of the Federation of State School Parents Clubs, Ms Jeanne Chippett, has claimed that the scheme is `ridiculous' and that the role of schools is to educate not act as job agencies.
Those who hold this view maintain that schools exist to help students acquire certain skills and knowledge and functioning as employment agencies would divert them from this purpose and be a misuse of their resources.
It has further been claimed that this latest proposal is part of an established trend of attempting to have a wide range of societal problems affecting young people dealt with in schools. Critics note that sex education, drug education, pre-driver education and relationship training have all been drawn within the range of areas to be treated at school. It has further been noted that societal problems such as family breakdown, child abuse and poverty are making it increasingly difficult for schools to educate students.
The Sydney Morning Herald in its editorial of April 25, 1997, has stated, `The curriculum ... has become overloaded with each additional task imposed on the schools. The overloading has reached the point, moreover, where the fundamental purpose of the schools - schooling and then educating young people - is being overwhelmed.' The editorial claims that requiring schools to perform too many functions means they may be unable to adequately develop in students basic skills centring on literacy and numeracy.
As a further consequence of the supposed overburdening of teachers, it has been claimed that teachers are becoming increasingly prone to stress-related disorders and are thus having problems performing their jobs adequately.
Other major criticisms of Dr Kemp's proposal are that it is said by some to be a political exercise and a proposal which is doomed to failure if judged as an attempt to solve the problem of youth unemployment.
According to this line of argument the government is off-loading onto schools the issue of youth unemployment, which its policies and agencies have not been able to address adequately.
Those who hold this view maintain that schools are no more likely to be successful and that all the government will have achieved is that sections of the community may direct their complaints regarding youth unemployment to schools rather than to the government.
The federal Opposition spokesperson on Schools, Vocational Education and Training, Mr Mark Latham, has stated that schools are being given `mission impossible'. `It's a bit rich,' Mr Latham has stated, `to expect them [schools] to do what the Government and the private sector can't do themselves.'
It has been claimed that solving the problem of unemployment is not simply a matter of effectively referring job seekers to appropriate jobs. Critics of the current government's employment policies maintain that the fundamental problem is insufficient jobs and that the only real solution is the creation of jobs.
Mr Latham has further claimed that schools would become scapegoats for unemployment. A similar view has been expressed by the federal president of the Australian Education Union, Ms Sharan Burrow, who has said, `We are just appalled that the government should seek to shift its responsibility to the schools.'
Another criticism that has been made of the proposal is that it is `vague and unclear'. This criticism has been made on behalf of the New South Wales Minister for Education, Mr Aquilina. A spokesperson for Mr Aquilina has stated that unless more information is supplied and clear long-term benefits are established for students and schools, then no New South Wales school will take part.
The spokesperson claimed, `Relaunching vague and unclear policy proposals is no answer to Australia's unemployment problem.' According to this line of argument, the proposal is without sufficient detail for schools to be aware of what their responsibilities would be or how they would fulfill them.
Further implications
It is not clear the extent to which this proposal to have schools function as employment agencies for ex-students is tied to the Reform of Employment Services Bill. The Bill has faced significant opposition in the Senate to the extent that the Employment Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone, has threatened to have it put into effect via government regulation rather than legislation.
It would appear that the government is extremely determined to overhaul the CES and it further seems likely that some form of Dr Kemp's proposal to have schools function as job agencies will be put in place.
The initial means of introducing the scheme within schools is similar to the manner in which the Victorian state government introduced its Schools of the Future policy. Initially schools entered on interest and willingness, later, however, all schools were required to join.
If Dr Kemp's proposal is put in place, it may ultimately be that all secondary schools take part in the scheme because the financial incentives attached to it may make it seem too attractive for them to not become involved. Some critics have also suggested that the private employment agencies and the Public Employment Placement Enterprise which are to replace the CES are not particularly well-geared to place recent school-leavers in jobs and so it may be necessary for schools to take on the role Dr Kemp has foreshadowed.
Sources
The Age
22/4/97 page 1 news item by Innes Willox, `Schools may get cash to find students jobs'
29/4/97 page 3 (Education supplement) analysis by Margaret Cook, `Society's ills come to class'
31/5/97 page 8 news item by Innes Willox, `Senate tones down CES plan'
18/6/97 page 4 news item by Paul Chamberlain, `Opposition parties block bill on CES'
The Australian
22/4/97 page 3 news item by Sue Cant, `School job-search role attacked'
The Herald Sun
21/4/95 page 2 news item by Karl Malakunas, `Schools in new jobs role'
22/4/97 page 13 news item by Gabriella Coslovich and Karl Malakunas, `Job blame fears for schools'
23/4/97 page 18 editorial, `New school of thought'
The Sydney Morning Herald
22/4/97 page 2 news item by Jodie Brough & Stephanie Raethel, `NSW rejects plan for schools as job agents'
25/4/97 page 12 editorial, `School work'
1/5/97 page 11 news item by Mike Secombe, `PM's losing the battle over jobless'
9/5/97 pages 1 & 6 news item by Paul Cleary, `Vanstone tells CES to slug the boss'
12/5/97 page 2 news item by Paul Cleary, `CES changes may bypass a hostile Senate'
The Internet
School to Work Opportunities - an Owners Manual.
This is an information brochure produced by the US Department of Education and the US Department of Labor on the American scheme to help young people find employment. It can be found at gopher://gopher.ed.gov:10001/00/OVAE/school2work/brochure
A series of answers to frequently asked questions about the School-to-Work scheme can be found at gopher://gopher.ed.gov:10001/00/OVAE/school2work/zzq%26a
(Please note, these Internet sites were current at the time of going to print; however, all Web sites are subject to change.)