In its report, Footprints to the Future, (2001) the former Prime Minister Howards’s Youth Pathways Action Plan Taskforce found that career and transition services were inconsistent around Australia and urged that all young people should have access to professional career advice, ongoing assistance with transition planning from Year 8; and effective, relevant and appropriate career and transition support in school and/or in local community settings; and that every young person from Year 8 onwards develops a ‘Learning Pathways Plan’ to address transition issues as they arise. It was the Taskforce’s view that ensuring access and following up on student transitions should be a primary responsibility of school principal. The Career and Transition (CAT) pilots formed part of the immediate response to these recommendations by providing opportunities to test and learn from methodologies for providing enhanced career and transition support to young people aged 13-19 years.
These objectives are also contained within the Career and Transition Services Framework, developed by the MCEETYA Taskforce on Transition from School. The framework presents a range of options that could be implemented to support young people in making effective transitions through school and between school and post-school destinations. At the July 2003 meeting of MCEETYA, Ministers agreed to promote the Framework as a tool to assist jurisdictions in planning for and providing services to support and prepare young people to make successful transitions.
Recent international research has also highlighted the important role of governments in better equipping individuals for life, learning and work. Canadian research suggests that the social and economic costs of inaction are enormous, leading ultimately to a polarised society with an increasing gap between rich and poor. With widespread skill shortages looming, and demographic pressures leading to a shrinking workforce, more than 70% of new jobs will require at least some post-secondary education, leading to a substantial mismatch between demand and supply of skills (Jarvis, 2003).
In response to these growing concerns and the recommendations of the former Prime Minister Howard’s Taskforce, the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), established 23 Career and Transition (CAT) pilots, which gave communities the opportunity to explore appropriate models of career and transition service provision, within a flexible, action learning framework. There was widespread support from communities wishing to participate in the pilots for the CAT programme’s flexible guidelines, which were based on the premise that individual communities are best placed to know what is required in their region.
The CAT pilots have had a significant and immediate impact on large numbers of students, on several school communities, and on many parents keen to support their children’s career development. Large numbers of young people participated in the pilots, and benefited from the assistance provided by the CAT Advisers as they moved along their career pathways. In total, the CAT pilots provided a career and transition service to over 37,000 young people. 24,000 Learning Pathways Plans were implemented, approximately 12,000 with assistance provided directly by a CAT Adviser and 12,000 with assistance from a teacher.
Embarking on a deliberate career journey, through pathways planning, has been a positive experience for many young people. The relationships that have formed between Advisers and individual students were claimed to be a factor in building their resilience. Enhanced confidence, a sense of purpose and direction, and in some cases re-engagement with schooling have all been attributed to students’ participation in CAT activities, particularly in those cases where they received individualised assistance from a CAT Adviser. It is anticipated that in the longer-term, as the transitions of cohorts of young students that have participated in pathways planning are monitored more closely, other impacts will be observed.
At this stage, however, the most commonly observed/cited impact of career and transition services has been the enthusiasm with which young people have approached the task of dreaming, designing, deciding and then doing something about taking steps towards their preferred future.
It was evident that considerable effort and research went into the development of Learning Pathways Plans, other career information and professional development materials at each of the pilot sites. Many pilots also utilised and engaged members of their community as important sources of career and transition information. Many of the products that have been developed, with ongoing updating, will continue to be important sources of local level information for young people and their career and transition partners.
Several indicators of the successful integration of CAT activities were evidenced by the evaluators:
- In a number of schools, learning programs have been adapted to reflect greater emphasis on career and transition learning opportunities.
- LPPs have been incorporated into existing school activities and the curriculum, and schools have assumed responsibility for facilitating learning pathways planning with students.
- In the Lower Hunter Region, some schools planned visits from the Careers Caravan to coincide with work experience blocks, to assist the young people make the most of their work experience placements.
- Community members (including schools) frequently expressed concerns about their capacity to continue to resource a CAT Adviser. This was seen as an indication that CAT services had become a valued part of school activities.
Few pilots differentiated between the facilitation of a young person’s career development and the provision of transition support; some however saw that instituting an enduring pathways planning process would ultimately achieve some of the longer term objectives of comprehensive career development programs. LPPs were seen as a tool that had achieved the following significant outcomes:
- They had increased community awareness of the importance of career and transition issues for young people.
- Young people were becoming more actively responsible for managing their own career journeys.
- Conversations between a range of individuals with an interest in the careers of young people had been facilitated by the introduction of the LPPs.
The investigation of tracking methodologies was not fully explored by many of the pilot projects. Many pilots considered that with State/Territory–wide tracking methodologies being trialled, their individual efforts would be superfluous. Others became immersed in privacy issues that they found too difficult to resolve in the timeframe of the pilots. Those that achieved some success, largely used labour-intensive, personalised approaches such as phone calls by someone that the young person trusted, and the provision of intensive follow-up support for those that needed it, in partnership with appropriate local service providers.
Where the CPCs had been successful (ie in the majority of cases), they appear to have facilitated the greater involvement of community agencies and industry in the lives of local young people. Community members had become more aware of issues facing young people in their region and banded together to ensure that their individual services were as effective as possible in meeting the career and transition needs of young people, and that wherever possible and appropriate, the linkages between these services and organisations were enhanced. On the other hand, the involvement of some CPC members was not as ‘hands on’ as had been hoped.
The effects of partnering with others to provide career and transition services to young people were overwhelmingly positive. Given the direct service delivery role of most CAT Advisers, their concurrent efforts to build cohesive partnerships were most successful.
In terms of sustainability of CAT activities, several pilots considered that one CAT Adviser could provide support services across a district or community, provided that schools assumed responsibility for the actual delivery of services to students. The evaluators also consider that such a hub and spokes model has the greatest chance of sustainability in the current environment.
In order to ensure that a reasonable standard of service delivery is provided, minimum skills, knowledge and attributes that are aligned to core competencies, being defined in Australia and in international settings, should be considered, and required, as far as is practicable, when all future career and transition positions are designed, advertised and filled. Undoubtedly, the degree of prescription needs to take into account the difficulties associated with recruiting staff in some rural areas, and the importance of culturally appropriate service provision in others.
Both the flexibility in the guidelines and the more collaborative approach, which has also been a feature of the ongoing management of the projects, has resulted largely in extremely positive and appreciative feedback from participants at the national action forum, and in teleconferences, site visits and in the projects’ quarterly and final reports.
Almost all of the pilots found working within an action learning framework to be an enjoyable and useful experience. New ideas were incorporated, lessons learnt, and adjustments made in projects that used the ongoing cycle of thinking, planning, acting and reflecting to shape their weekly team meetings and CPC meetings. Many spoke of significant shifts in direction that had occurred as a result of their action learning process.
Volume 1 of this report draws together the common threads of the experience of the pilots. The unique experiences of each of the pilots are detailed in case studies that describe more fully the circumstances in which certain strategies worked and others didn’t.
The cases studies are contained in Volume 2 of this report.
Contact Details
cats@dest.gov.au