There’s another way in which Howard’s comments suggesting kids should drop out at Year 10 are out of touch with reality. The implied background is one in which parents (and social pressure in general) are increasingly pushing kids to finish year 12 and go on to University. In reality, Australia’s school completion rate[1] peaked in 1992 and the number of new Australian undergraduate enrolments in universities has barely changed since the Howard government was elected. The suggestion that we need even more dropouts is simply bizarre.
In most developed countries, including European countries that do a much better job on technical education than we do, universal high-school completion is either a central policy goal or an established reality. It’s true, as many have pointed out that this implies a need for schools to adopt a broader approach to what is offered in Years 11 and 12, with more technically-oriented courses, and less exclusive focus on traditional preparation for university. Oddly enough, however, most recent criticism of the school curriculum has focused on the fact that they aren’t teaching enough Shakespeare.
fn1. This measure isn’t perfect and the 1992 peak is probably overstated. But the general pattern is clear enough.
John Quiggin 
Until relatively recently, the Right has been an oppositionist, reactive force in Australian public life. The Colonel Blimp traditionalists who want more Shakespeare and, if possible, a more liberal dose of “six of the best” were in alliance with market-driven pragmatists who wanted training to equip the masses for their prefabricated spot in the economic machine. Their marginality against progressivism made them ready allies.
However, in the sphere of education, as in most spheres, the Right is in ascendance. Now the discover that their old allies are in fact dangerous enemies whose vision of the future is inimical to their own.
That’s an opening to the “let the market decide” nutters if ever there was one. Stand by for spurious arguments on why the private sector should govern higher education. Time for a cocoa.
The titles ‘back to the 1950s’ for these two posts are unfair on the 1950s. Even with tuition fees, the Commonwealth scholarships available to students in the 1950s and 1960s were far more generous and socially just than anything coming out of the Education Department these days.
Can we swap the Howard legacy of higher education for the Menzies legacy?
John,
I think you are being unfair to the students who are never going to go to university and to Howard’s proposal. The current Y11 and Y12 syllabus is heavily targeted at getting kids into university – but many should not be headed there. Several of the kids I went to school with probably should not have been studying the subjects they were in years 11 and 12, but they did it because they (or more correctly their parents) thought they should be.
It does not take a year 12 education to work out how to use a computer. Most (if not all) schools now have computer education much earlier than that. Instead of wasting their time trying (and failing) to learn the finer points of English Literature or post-revolutionary France, these kids would be much better learning about good IP network design or applying their existing computer skills to reprogramming a car engine and diagnosing faulty tappets.
If this means they are streamed off into a separate school system (as in Germany) or broadening the existing syllabus to accommodate the classes within existing schools is just a question of implementation.
I would also disagree on the point about Shakespeare – most recent criticism (or at least what I have seen) focuses on the functional illiteracy (and lack of numeracy) of some “graduates� from high school. If everyone could read it would be an advance on some of the current output.
To call what Howard said an invitation to “…drop out at Year 10…� is simply wrong. Howard was quite clear that this meant going on to TAFE or an apprenticeship – either of which would be an advance on having 2 years added to an education that is seen as useless by the recipients.
Liam – There were some generous government scholarships in the 1950s, there are none now for undergraduates. However this was possible in the ’50s because there were very few students; several universities on their own now have more students than there were in all Australia during the invididual years in the ’50s. And since only a small percentage of mostly middle class people matriculated (as it was then called) in the 1950s it can hardly be called more ‘socially just’ than the current system, which has massively increased participation by kids from blue collar families.
John – It is true that there have been no dramatic increases in domestic student numbers in recent times (we have argued before about whether this matters). But graduates in the population continue to grow strongly because immigration rules favour them. Some of the overseas students are de facto full-fee Australian students, since they have no intention of going home permanently.
You’re right, comrade. It’s essential that we get as many children into the indoctrination centres… sorry, I mean universities as possible. If we don’t have these people who have no particular scholastic ambitions bulking up the Arts courses, how else will we impress upon their fertile minds the need to hate everything American, capitalistic, democratic and western in general?
They need to know what to hate. If we don’t tell them, they might actually live ideologically meaningless lives pursuing happiness and prosperity.
That can’t be allowed to happen. We’ll need lots of cannon fodder to hurl bravely towards the capitalist guns when the great revolution finally comes (it is taking rather a long time, isn’t it?).
Then all those lazy, freedom-loving people who might have actually wanted to become tradesfolk can be told precisely how it is that they’ll be living their lives. Freed of all personal responsibility, they’ll at last know a blissful existence.
Or they’ll be shot.
But Mikhail, if there were fewer people who had the benefit of the liberal education that you describe, there’d be fewer people who might be capable of divining the fact that you are attempting to be ironic. This would detract from the quality of communication.
On the plus side, however, there’d be fewer people who’d be capable of explaining just how unamusing you are.
So, I suppose the question of the marginal utility of your argument is open to some debate.
Mr Quiggin,
You have it wrong, the PM did not suggest that “kids should drop out at Year 10”. He simply stated the obvious, that kids should decide in year 10 whether to pursue a trade or attempt university entry.
Look at this report The quoted statement from Howard clearly implies that the only reason for staying at school until Year 12 is to go on to university, and that those considering a trade should leave at Year 10. For example
“High Year 12 retention rates became the goal, instead of us as a nation recognising there are some people who should not go to university. What (these people) should do is at Year 10 decide they’re going to be a tradesman.”
You’re assuming the PM meant that kids should consider quitting school. The PM didn’t suggest kids quit school to pursue a trade because he’s aware that, for most kids, this is not a realistic option. For example, the New Apprenticeships site states the following:
What qualifications do I need to become a New Apprentice?
New Apprenticeships are open to anyone who is 15 years or older, but like any other job, you’ll stand a better chance of gaining a New Apprenticeship if you have completed Year 12, completed vocational studies at school or have a part time job in the industry you want to pursue. School-based New Apprenticeships give you the option of starting a New Apprenticeship while still at school.
Your school careers adviser can provide you with more information on qualifications and New Apprenticeships.
So, the PM has done nothing more than suggest to kids they consider the education and workforce realities and make a decision at 15. You’re trying to make a big deal out of nothing.
JFB, if Howard didn’t mean kids should consider quitting school, what was the point of his discussion about Year 12 completion rates? And why hasn’t he complained about the Australian and other papers running stories with headlines like this?
Drop out and get a trade: PM
and opening paras like:
JOHN Howard has urged young people to consider quitting school in Year 10 to pursue careers in traditional trades as the nation faces a growing shortage of skilled workers.
I agree that the idea that you should quite at Year 10 to take up a trade is stupid – that was the point of my first post. But that’s what Howard suggested.
Spot on Mikhail, the indoctrination centres are the soap boxes for middle age leftist perpetual students. They enter these institutions when they leave school, advance to become lecturers as they gain as many phds as they can before they retire at 65 and enter the real world. They will soon have to swim in their own crap if they can’t work out we need plumbers to unblock toilets.
.
Well done Katz, you are catching up! The so-called right has always been a mixed bag of goods and twenty years ago I wrote a paper pointing out the need for the various groupings of the non-left to pay some critical and imaginative attention to each others agendas.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/hayuniting.html
Gosh, thanks Rafe … I think.
I read your reference. I can see where you’re coming from. (I visited there some time ago, decided not to stay.)
Speaking purely from a spirit of cultural co-operation, I think the Blimp Right has much to teach the neo-liberals the bracing pleasures of bondage and discipline administered with a rhino-hide whip. The neo-liberals could return the favour by educating the Blimps on the finer points of ritual humiliation by practical application of the principle of marginal utility.
They may find that they indeed have much in common.
Sounds like lashings of fun, Katz! Can everyone join in?
The real issue in addressing the scarcity of tradesmen is whether trade schools are prepared to accept mature students. There are enough unemployed people who missed their opportunity to learn a trade when they were 17, and now find that the minimum wages are pricing themselves out of an apprentices’ ticket.
Secondly, if universities are subsidized to provide skills to students, why are tradesmen who take on apprentices have to pay their students to learn?
Alex, anyone can join in as long as they chant “There is no such thing as Society! There is no such thing as Society!”
And the best thing is you don’t have to respect anyone the next morning.
I was not born in the 1950’s so I cannot say much about this.Granted not all of us are cut out for school past 10th Grade Level but Why not Like Singapore and Most of Western Europe give them decent other opportunities but not be forced into doing something they absolutely hate just to please the parent’s and family such as the traditional trades.Youth will always seek better fast food work and pays as long as the trades pay them peanuts you will get monkeys.