Teach Good Citizenship: Academics

The Age

Monday September 1, 2008

Caroline Milburn

It's the old debate - improve the 3Rs or life skills? By Caroline Milburn.

YOUTH violence in society is a problem partly because not enough effort has gone into teaching 15-year-olds how to be good citizens, says an expert on post-compulsory education.

Professor Terri Seddon, of Monash University's education faculty, says recent waves of reform in education have focused on skills that students need for work but policy-makers have overlooked the need to build citizenship skills.

The 2005 Cronulla riot in NSW, which involved young people from different migrant backgrounds, was one of many examples of civic conflict that suggested education was failing in the crucial task of preparing adolescents to be responsible decision-makers.

"The Cronulla riots were a wake-up call for Australia," says Professor Seddon. "With a booming economy and an assertive government, the violence at Cronulla was a stark reminder that nations have to be made and remade culturally, as well as economically."

She says schooling's main goal is to prepare young people for productive and responsible adult lives as workers and citizens. "Cronulla highlighted that some young people were not using power - their power of collective action - in a responsible way. Young people must learn citizenship skills if they are to exercise power responsibly."

Learning how to interact with others was an important aspect of schooling but systems such as TAFE and other work-school partnerships focused on vocational training and were ill-equipped to teach life skills to teenagers, many of whom were disengaged from learning.

"When you talk to TAFE teachers they'll tell you they're now getting lots of 15-year-olds coming in, and they're not trained to teach these kids," says Professor Seddon."They say they're used to dealing with adults who want to be there, but some of these kids don't. TAFE teachers are finding it very hard to deal with these kids."

Professor Seddon was a guest speaker at the Australian Council for Educational Research's national conference in Brisbane last month.

Other educators at the conference raised concerns about the extent of life skills being taught in senior secondary school. They warned that a narrow focus on specific skills for particular occupations would not equip students for the unpredictable changes caused by globalisation and advances in information technology.

Important personal, social and civic skills should also be taught to teenagers if they are to succeed in the workplace, say Dr David Curtis, of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research and Dr Gabrielle Matters, of the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Dr Curtis and Dr Matters say basic skills such as numeracy and literacy are essential but generic life skills are also vital in developing a student's personal growth, their civic engagement and participation in the workforce. Generic skills include self-management, the ability to communicate effectively with others, work in teams and solve problems by using different strategies.

The researchers say that although much policy attention had been paid to the concept of lifelong learning - learning for and throughout one's life - the concept was in danger of becoming a piece of educational jargon because the generic skills required for life-long learning have not been rigorously defined and measured in secondary school curriculums. The absence of agreement among state and federal education authorities on how to identify a core set of life skills and assess and report on a student's progress in achieving them made it difficult for all schools to implement them coherently.

"Generic skills have been recognised as important but there are two key barriers to their implementation," says Dr Curtis. "The first barrier is; how do you define them and the second is assessment. The problem is that if you don't assess these skills, teachers won't teach them. If you are going to take generic skills seriously they have to be assessed."

Martin Riordan, chief executive officer of TAFE Directors Australia, says 17-year-olds rather than 15-year-olds are the largest group of young TAFE students. New Victorian vocational TAFE programs at Chisholm, Holmesglen and the University of Ballarat have included literacy, numeracy and life skills in their training and trades courses.

But those running the nation's 58TAFE institutes say poor literacy and numeracy skills are the main reason many students struggle to learn good work and life habits. Mr Riordan, whose agency represents the TAFE institutes, says the organisation has urged Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard to make literacy and numeracy programs a compulsory part of the Government's $1.9billion pledge to create 630,000 extra vocational training places.

"The capacity for students to engage in study is very mixed, and it's not just those in TAFE; we hear the same comments about students coming from university vice-chancellors," he says. "If we are serious about productivity we have to avoid seeing a lost generation of those unable to be engaged with the community or the workforce."

LINK

acer.edu.au

GOOD CITIZENS

Life skills that should be taught at secondary school:

effective communication; empathise, persuade and share information

teamwork; identify and use strengths of team members

self-management; how to manage time, priorities

how to resolve conflict

problem-solving, long-term and short term strategic planning

Source: David Curtis, National Centre for Vocational Education Research and Gabrielle Matters, ACER

© 2008 The Age

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