14 October 2021

Discover how we're making it easier for students to find a career they'll love using the new Student Pathways website. It links young people with industry and has a CV builder that's like LinkedIn for students.

Show Notes

• Student Pathways website
• Pathways for further education and employment - EDi
• VET for school students (PDF)

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome back to Teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education today, we're in the state's Innovation Hub at Lot Fourteen, where a few hundred students from around 20 schools are learning more about career options in the defence space and cyber industries.

We've just launched the department's new student pathways website, which is a key piece of the puzzle in terms of raising the visibility of vocational pathways for our students and helping them to plot their way toward a career that matches their passions. Joining me today to talk about that website and the department's refreshed approach to vocational education is executive director for student pathways and careers, Clare Feszczak, and alongside her is a man who wears a lot of hats.

But in this instance joins us in his capacity as a member of the South Australian Skills commission, Dino Rossi. Welcome to you both.

Dino Rossi: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: So, first of all, the last 18 months for the Department for Education, we've delivered a fairly [00:01:00] significant change in our approach to vocational education and training. Clare, give us the elevator pitch on what you and the team have put in place and the motivation behind it.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah, South Australia is taking a nation leading approach into pathways, career education, and motivating students to think about careers post school. So the last 18 months to two years, we've been working on the VET for school students, policy reforming VET within schools. So it's the highest quality it's actually aligned to industry need.

And it creates a pathway that students can start within school and then complete post-school and get into their career sooner. As part of that, it's been the development of the website, which you've mentioned Dale has been launched today, and we've been very excited about the website. The website really gives students an idea of all the possibilities and helps them to understand the world of work and understand what it means to actually have a [00:02:00] job in certain industries and what's required to actually prepare for work post school.

Dale Atkinson: One of the key things that stands out for me, and as a guy in his early forties, was that for us careers education and the understanding of where vocational education and training could take you was extremely limited.

My career's exposure was probably, um, you know, a couple of half-hour sessions with a bloke who was normally the geography teacher. And you talked a little bit about I don't know there was a, there was a tick box on some things that you might be interested in further on, and then they gave you some subject options and that was pretty much it. You were left to your own devices. So this is really about recalibrating, a lot of that and giving students a lot more agency in making their decisions. Isn't it?

Clare Feszczak: Certainly is. Yeah. So this is about, um, really inspiring students to think about their interests and what their passions are. It's certainly not about locking in students to a particular career. We know that students will have multiple jobs, multiple careers, multiple industries. So it's [00:03:00] really about them understanding what they enjoy, what industries they might be interested in and then exploring those opportunities as much as possible through career events or through tours of different industries or through work experience or even volunteering.

And the research shows that the sooner students do that and get involved in those kind of things, the more informed they are so better informed to understand what the options are. And I think one of the challenges today is that there's so many options available. You know, we, we live with that. You can be anything, you can do anything. And in many ways, that actually is quite overwhelming for young people. So by giving young people, the agency and the opportunities, making it easy for them to explore all these options, it helps them to hone in on what they're really interested in.

Dale Atkinson: An interesting thing, I think is that the website effectively is a product that's flown on from an awful lot of other work around essentially linking those [00:04:00] vocational pathways with the areas of study. Um, and the areas of training that we know will, will get them into jobs or get them into careers where there are job opportunities.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah. So vocational education and training is a great way to actually learn technical skills. That industry value. Vocational education and training in schools gives students the opportunity to start that workplace training as early as possible. We know that vocational education and training is designed by industry for industry. It creates a real feel of what it's like to actually work in the job and what we've done with the development of flexible industry pathways, as part of this reform, we've worked with industry to say, okay, what is the vocational education training?

What are the the skills, what are the industry certificates that young students in school need to actually enter into your industry? So the flexible industry pathways, as part of the VET reform really provide that pathway [00:05:00] to areas where we know there's jobs and we know that industry actually value students coming in through that route.

So it's actually quite a significant change in the way that VET's delivered in schools in the past. It's a pathway that industry endorsed that leads to jobs in South Australia. And the important thing with this reform as well is we actually want to keep South Australians in South Australia for young people to see that there are opportunities and how to get to these job opportunities is really important to us.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That might be an opportunity to bring Dino Rossi in on this conversation a little bit, because I guess in your role with the SA Skills Commission and externally, as I mentioned earlier, you wear a lot of hats. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do, and a little bit about how that's helped Clare and her team to, to shape the conversation around developing those tips.

Dino Rossi: Yeah, sure. So first a little bit of my background. So I did come through a trade. I finished year 12 and took the pathway to do a trade. I'm an instrumentation tradesman. And very, very proud of it. As I mentioned to someone today, I still pay for my, for my license, [00:06:00] even though I don't practice it and haven't done for many, many years, but subsequent to that, um, yeah, then I, uh, continued training, ended up doing a Diploma of Information Technology at TAFE, um, have worked in the IT industry pretty much my entire career, and then subsequently went on and did higher education in business management training as well as, um, some research as well.

So, um, you know, my career very much started as, as being an apprentice and then growing through that apprenticeship, looking at further opportunities and where that apprenticeship could take me and what the skills offered. And now I find myself enjoying a variety of different roles, mainly focused around industry partnership.

My role today on the commission I'm chair of the industry skills council on the commission, which covers technology, cybersecurity, creative industries, and business. And my role is to inform and bring together industry and to inform industry of what the various options are available for them to be able to secure new, emerging talent and to work with the department. and work with Clare and her team on how we can [00:07:00] create those opportunities for students and not just students, but also for their advisors. And when I talk about that, I'm thinking of parents I'm thinking of career advisors, I'm thinking of their peers. I'm thinking of teachers and helping inform them of what these options are because often they simply don't know.

You talked before about some of the challenges that vocational training has had. So let's just say over the last 20 years. And that hasn't just been from the perspective of students as Clare shared, it's also being from the perspective of industry. Industry has lost contact in some ways there's a lot of industries out there that don't clearly understand the opportunities for them in partnering with vocational training to secure the next emerging talent that can be used for their industries.

Dale Atkinson: And it's a, it's such an important role. So we're at Lot Fourteen today. And I think the listeners will be able to hear a fair bit of work going on in the background and construction work and the important thing about Lot Fourteen is it is an innovation hub. It is a space where, you know, new careers are being created new [00:08:00] industries are being created. How important is it in a workforce and employment environment where you know, there are so many emerging jobs that there are so many changes in workforce need that we are linking up the schools with the industry, with the education and research institutions. How important is that?

Dino Rossi: It's unbelievably critical. If I, if I lift this up to start with and talk about South Australia, firstly, it's an exciting time. It is really exciting. So you mentioned Lot Fourteen there's also the Tonsley district. There's also Mawson Lakes. We've got the defence sector really starting to emerge really strongly. We've got space emerging. We are attracting a lot of international organisations right now into Lot Fourteen and they are excited to be here. That means talent. We need to continue to grow our talent pool ensuring that all of our educational institutions from vocational training to university research institutions are tightly linked with industry, industry informs the education institutions or what it needs out of emerging talent.

[00:09:00] Um, so that linkage is unbelievably critical. The other piece to that, that I would add as well. It's also incumbent on industry to do that. Um, so if industry is looking at needs talent, it can't just simply point a finger over at an education institution and say, oh, you're not giving me the talent. I want. Now's the time to engage with them, which is what we're doing to ensure that, I use the term a lot, but this emerging talent that's coming out has opportunities. And doesn't, you know, doesn't meet the needs of industry.

Dale Atkinson: I guess that's one of the key functions of the website, Clare is really essentially acting as a shop window for students, but also there's a need for the industry to bid into that isn't there, that they have a role in terms of making themselves visible and available to kids.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah, that's right. The, the opportunity with the website is, as you say, Dale is for the students, but also for industry employers too. And we hear all the time that industry and employers do want to connect with schools, but actually don't know how to, and the website, gives a means of, uh, industry and employees actually posting opportunities and being been able [00:10:00] to contact over 500 different schools in the state and promote those either jobs or even industry-based projects that students could pick up as part of the curriculum and part of their timetable.

So the website certainly is aimed at students and families but also industry and employers, and there's an industry employers section on that website, which we are heavily promoting with, with employers to actually have a look, see what you can do and then post your opportunities.

Dale Atkinson: Let's talk a little bit about the additional functionality that sits in that website because it's really been built with students in mind to make them able to see the opportunities that are available, but also to record some of their experiences and to be able to create a portfolio of skills and activities that they can then use as they transition into work.

Can you tell us a bit about those?

Clare Feszczak: So the website is the first for, for South Australia, and I think it's probably a, um, a world leader in terms of bringing different components together. The website has a [00:11:00] couple of places where students can actually register. The first is the world of work challenge and this is a self initiated student part of the website, where they can actually go and discover different experiences and log the hours that they've been involved in those experiences.

When a student reaches a hundred hours, they actually gain a certificate. That certificate then is verified by their teacher in their school or the career advisor in the school. And that contributes to a profile for the student that then when they do apply for jobs, they've got a certificate of experience, which gives them some credibility with future employers. The world of work certificate also automatically goes into a, a CV builder which is on the website. Another area of the website that's specifically designed for students and the CV builder is a template for building a CV. The CV builder is, has been designed in line with [00:12:00] LinkedIn. So we all have an LinkedIn profile, we're familiar with that technology. The CV builder is LinkedIn for school students without the social media and the connectivity. It's a safe place for students to actually think about what a CV looks like and start to build their CV and use their experiences that they've gained through the world of work challenge to populate the CV, the CV then can be downloaded and it can be customized and it can be sent off to employ.

Dale Atkinson: It's a really active and living thing. And I know it's going to develop over the coming years as the industry gets more involved in terms of ah posting things up and as, as the kids start to engage with the world of work challenge and other things like that. So it's a, it's a really powerful tool, uh, in that regard. So I think it's great. So I guess, uh, the question I have for both of you and I'll ask you separately is. Where next for, for the VET team, where next for the way that industry and the sectors engage with, with education, Clare I might start with you.

Clare Feszczak: So this is just the start, so we're very [00:13:00] excited to have the website and to be launching Flexible Industry Pathways for 2022, but really it's the start of bigger, bigger things. What we are aiming for is every student has a career plan with multiple pathway options. Career plan is developed with the student based on all their experiences, based on the discovery and the use of the website and their world of work challenge and, um, students are then setting themselves up for something post-school, which is meaningful for them.

So at this stage, the focus has been very much on VET and the flexible industry pathways, we'd see those expanding to be much more than just what they are now. So 2022 is an exciting year, but it's the starting year for this work. I think South Australian students deserve this. They deserve the best opportunities possible. And South Australia as a state deserves it too.

Dale Atkinson: And Dino where do you think we should be in five years from now?

Dino Rossi: Where we should be in five [00:14:00] years, um, where we should be, is having for me personally, right, and I think for my industry skills council, and my perspective is number one, have a really wonderful and exciting high-tech industry sector in this state. And we're sitting in the middle of it now and seeing that continue to grow and succeed. Number one. Number two, for our industries to provide really good and clear pathways and opportunities, right. For our emerging talent because that is the future of our state and expand on, I suppose it affects what industry pathways with actually flexible what I would simply call career pathways options.

When we talk about things like apprentices, when we talk about traineeships and these kinds of things, there's often a fixed perspective of what that looks like. Our work on the commission at the moment is challenging that. The new Act under the South Australian Skills Commission gives us a lot more flexibility. So when we start talking about things like dual traineeships, dual apprenticeships, hire apprenticeships, you [00:15:00] know, the notion of what an apprenticeship or a traineeship was or currently is and what it could be in the future. We're looking to challenge that because we think there isn't just one pathway for children, students to enter the, uh, the workforce. And there's not just one pathway for industry to engage in that. So we want to be able to provide flexible options for industry and flexible options for students that ultimately give us a really, really good base of talent in our state to support, for example, the emerging industries that are, that are growing so rapidly.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And I think, um, you know, one of the great things about being here today at the defence space and cyber expo is you can see so many parts of the puzzle together. You've got education, you've got sort of industry sectors. You've got people from the skills council, you've got politicians, teachers, educators, right across the spectrum.

And there's absolutely no shortage of passionate enthusiasm and, and interest in [00:16:00] making this work. And I think, um, one of the really great things within the framework, and the FIPS and the website and the work that you guys are doing together is we're really moving forward in a really exciting and, um, and great way. So I think we're going to be in a great spot in five years and even better as we move forward. So Dino and Clare thank you very much for your time.

Dino Rossi: Thank you.

Clare Feszczak: Thank you.