In NSW, we have the TVET system. Year 11-12 students who don’t want to go to Uni can start doing a TAFE course while attending school (they come to my TAFE one afternoon a week). Their marks count towards the HSC but not towards a TER. It works quite well: the students are happy to be taught something they see as ‘relevant’, and while TAFE isn’t quite as restrictive at school it’s pretty sheltered and supportive. The courses that they do at school tend to be lower-level ones, I imagine, as these students have decided against Uni already.

I feel the material you are talking about really belongs at school, not TAFE. We can add to the cynicism of 15yos with a ‘How to lie with statistics’ course there, but I really can’t see how we can introduce such generalist material into TAFE curricula without alienating students who are looking for something ‘real’ and ‘practical’ because they aren’t that keen on the ‘irrelevant’ theoretical/conceptual material they get at school.

At least in my experience, I also wouldn’t hold Deakin up as a role model for anything, even if they are expanding (which I assume is probably mainly driven by their location and the fact they have space, unlike many other universities in Melbourne). Their graduates are so woeful that we never invite any into our 4th year, and that’s not a selection effect, because we do take others from universities with similar ENTER scores.

I am currently doing full time mechanical engineering and I work full time in the mining/minerals industry during the university breaks. I agree with you that this type of experience is extremely important. I end up doing around 24 weeks of work during the year, full time and the types of things I see and do are invaluable to the way I look at problems back at university.

I was not suggesting that you should learn about learning by studying learning theory. Much of learning about learning comes from doing a lot of learning over a range of subjects then spending a relatively small amount of time talking about improving learning skills. However, what I am saying is that, in many cases, the really useful thing is learning how to learn rather than the things that were learned – and that this must be recognized. It also means that the selection of subjects must take into account their usefulness as platforms for learning these core skills.
Similar comments could be made about the other items on my list. This doesn’t mean that some subjects aren’t essential. We need high competencies in things like reading and writing to do most of these things well and it is a bit hard to imagine seriously stretching students without taking maths beyond what they will actually need in life. I would also comment that most of what I know about geography and history I learned outside of the formal system by reading and discussion. For subjects like these the role of the school is to spur interest rather than teaching a great deal. Spuring interest might be better done by the occasional guest speaker than the drudgery of learning the subject.
Add “learning to detect bullshit to the list. Meant to put it in but forgot.
DINR@16: My wife and I both finished school in 1960 which meant we only did 5 years in high school. Can’t say we have noticed any real difference between us and people who took 6 years. Part of the problem was that the change to six years was done by adding a year to junior high school rather than senior high school.
The other problem is that tertiary institutes gave no credit for the extra learning time. so all it did was add a year to the age of graduation. An extra year of senior school that was designed to trim, say, half a year off tertiary education would have given students more time in subjects that they were not going to study, room for occasional speaker time and less impact on the length of ones working life.
It is worth noting that, in my time most NSW tradesmen started their apprenticeships with three years less schooling than they do now. However, apprenticeships still take the magic 4 years despite this extra education.
Perhaps it would help if vocational qualifications were based on external competency tests that were set up to asses on the basis of real needs, not nice to haves. And time paying fees to the education business was not one of the requirements.

And, importantly, how do you think the average 18-year-old would feel about it?

I remember how I felt about finishing school at age 18. An extra year? I would have quite likely strangled to death the person that came up with the idea.

I had that too, however it’s mostly just an independent requirement. I’m talking experience that is integrated with the subject matter taught in the degree. The content of the subjects I studied seemed entirely focused on understanding how things work, rather than understanding how to make things that work.

Lots of engineering students during my time did work every xmas holidays and some ended up with part time jobs during the year. And its not a bad opportunity for employers to give potential future employees a test run without an obligation to hire them at the end.

Nothing much would have been lost if my degree had had enough padding stripped out to reduce it to a two year degree.

From my experience studying engineering, I think greater coordination with industry for short employment stints for students throughout their degree would be a better option than shortening the degree.

The core business is about teaching kids:
1. To be curious and to want to learn more.
2. How to learn.
3. How to solve new problems.
4. How to to deal with new ideas and information.
5. How to communicate.

Surely subjects such as English & Maths are essentially prerequisites for these?

http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/stories/articles/art-edviews-mar05-2.html

It’s a shame that it took “what iz name” to give this initiative the recognition it deserved and not the enlightened ALP. Maybe there is just so might light arcing from the ALP caucus that they cannot see the soft glow of individual genius from the community all around. From my observation people who learn to ask questions with a passion not only find answers, but they learn to teach themselves.

I am thinking about this in a hotel room in Qingdao. What an eye opener this city is.