Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Will the minister update the Senate on the progress regarding the jobs focused P-TECH pilot in Geelong and Ballarat in my home state of Victoria?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McKenzie for the question and for her very strong and passionate interest in this program, particularly in the communities of Geelong and Ballarat. Our government is very committed to helping school students navigate their pathways to further training, further education or employment. We are examining a range of models as to how that can best be achieved, including the US based Pathways to Technology Early College High School, otherwise known as P-TECH. As part of this commitment we are undertaking a half-a-million-dollar trial of two P-TECH sites in Victoria—one in Ballarat and the other in Geelong, as mentioned. Both of those trials commenced this year, and I am delighted to give progress reports to the Senate.

At the Newcomb Secondary College in Geelong, over 80 year 9 students are participating in the first year of the trial. It is compulsory for those students in year 9 and will then become an elective from year 10 onwards. These students are working with a range of local employer partners to develop their STEM skills and job readiness. Employers include: Barwon Health, GMHBA, Tribal Campus, in the ICT space, Bendigo Bank and the Opteon group. I really want to thank those employers for their participation. In Ballarat, IBM have provided Federation College with significant support in developing this model. A dedicated P-TECH class of nearly 20 students is running, and all year 10 students are undertaking P-TECH electives.

I want to particularly take this opportunity to congratulate not just the employer partners in both sites but also the principals from the two schools involved, Phil Honeywell and Shirley Fraser, for their passion and commitment as well as the cooperation of the school communities.

Importantly, the P-TECH model is providing a pathway to work and employment for these school students. It is providing them with a real introduction to the world of work and ensuring that they not only develop more of the hard skills required for successful transition to work once they graduate from school but also those soft skills, in terms of understanding what it is that employers are looking for and better appreciating the roles that exist in their local communities.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, how are the pilots being adapted from their origins of the US?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to tell Senator McKenzie that this is not a direct cut-and-paste of the US model but that we are seeking to take the best bits of that and adapt them to complement the Australian education and schooling context. The education department has contracted the Skilling Australia Foundation to ensure that we can work in close collaboration with the principals and teachers in these schools, as well as with the local employer partners. I do acknowledge that Nick Wyman of the Skilling Australia Foundation has been chosen as one of the 2016 recipients of the Fulbright scholarship for his work in this particular space.

The two schools involved have each taken different approaches already, with one starting in year 9 and the other starting in year 10. Some are doing compulsory units; others are choosing elective units. These types of variances will help us to best structure the model in a way that, in future, can hopefully be rolled out across many more schools around Australia, to provide that type of very practical link between local employers and local schools to further the opportunities for students in the future.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Minister, what has the community said about the P-TECH pilots?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The communities have been both incredibly supportive and positive. This, of course, is demonstrated by the enthusiastic nature in which local businesses have got on board to support them. The Committee for Geelong CEO, Rebecca Casson, said:

The shape and nature of Australia's workforce, and more specifically the workforce in Geelong, is transforming. Therefore Geelong is the perfect place to pilot this new innovation in education.

I want to acknowledge the fact that even Senator Kim Carr has noted his support for the program, stating, when it was announced in 2014: 'It's important we have good connections with real-world economics. So I support notions of encouraging industry to be more engaged in the education system.'

It really is critical that we make sure that we do have this positive approach to building stronger ties between local schools and local employers, because it is those types of connections that will best equip young people with direct skills to get jobs in their local communities in the future, and the Turnbull government is strongly committed to doing so.