Not so fast: minimum leaving age raised
Updated
The New South Wales Government is planning to raise the minimum school leaving age to 17 from next year.
The 60-year-old laws allowing students to finish school at 15 will be changed to ensure that every student completes their year 10 School Certificate.
After that, students will not be able to leave unless they are enrolled in a vocational training program.
The Premier, Nathan Rees, says the change will bring New South Wales into line with the other states, which all have leaving ages of 16 or 17.
"This is a major shift in policy for New South Wales, but all the research is clear [about] the benefits of staying in school longer," he said.
"It means over the course of your lifetime, you're much less likely to be unemployed. It means over the course of your working life, you're much more likely to earn a better income, and it also means that there are additional health benefits and so on."
Mr Rees also says the plan is accommodating for people that do not want to pursue tertiary education.
"It's flexible. It recognises that a school setting is not everyone's cup of tea but what we're saying is every student will leave school in New South Wales with a minimum qualification of the school certificate, plus an additional year's training up to 17 in order to prepare them for work, prepare them for life," he said.
The state Opposition's spokesman Adrian Piccoli supports the move but says it needs to be properly resourced to be effective.
"This has got to be supported by funding for TAFE particularly, and for vocational education, if students are to be given other options other than school after they turn 15," he said.
However, the Parents and Citizens' Federation says the State Government must make sure that an increase to the minimum school leaving age is not a waste of time for students who are not interested in continuing their education.
Sharon Johnston from the P&C says this means extra resources are needed to make the school experience more interesting.
"What we would like to see is that students from all ages are retained in education, and we all know that children get disengaged from a very young age, and we need to make sure that the resources are targeted not just at the extra two years, but at those very crucial middle years before the itch starts to occur and children start to entertain the thought of leaving their very important educational careers behind," she said.
Topics: schools, education, continuing-education, education-associations, educational-resources, public-schools, secondary-schools, secondary, university-and-further-education, vocational, government-and-politics, programs-and-initiatives, social-policy, states-and-territories, nsw
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