The Australian Centre for Career Education

Response:

Jobs and Skills Australia should expand its advisory body to include representative from the pre-tertiary education sector across state and territory governments to ensure that the preparation of school students and their pathway needs are understood to inform robust policy development. 

Response:

Jobs and Skills Australia should be guided by workforce planning principles that consider the lifespan of individuals across the breadth of their education, training, working life, and exit to retirement. Career development is the process of reflecting on personal strengths and aspirations and managing life, learning, and work across the lifespan. It supports individuals to make informed and considered work, study, and employment choices and is a key factor in productivity measures.  Therefore, the scope of the input and output measures should be guided by lifelong learning principles if Australia is to develop effective whole of life, workforce planning policies. Many of Australia’s western counterparts have long applied a lifespan approach to workforce planning and CICA can support the development of national principles. 

As an example, the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training contracted with the Canadian Career Development Foundation to develop a framework containing competencies that assist Atlantic Canadians to navigate and propel learning, work, and transitions throughout their lives.

Reference: Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training, Atlantic competency Framework Online Platform. https://atlanticcompetencies.ca

Response:

To support data collection in relation to the education, skills and training needs of Australians, representatives from the school sector should be included in Jobs and Skills Australia. Pre-tertiary education representatives can support the new entity in relation to the collection of school education data, data interpretation, engagement with education stakeholders, and the promotion of outputs to the school sector. 

The CMEC Reference Framework for Successful Student Transitions.  identifies accountability measures for successful student transitioning and Australia has an opportunity to develop and monitor a range of measures and their outcomes. These measures will provide Australia with an opportunity to assess its successes and gaps in workforce development to inform policy development and for the allocation of funding.


Reference: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2017) CMEC Reference Framework for Successful Student Transitions. https://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/372/CMEC-Reference-Framework-for-Successful-Student-Transitions-EN.pdf

Response:

No response provided.

Response:

•	The emerging labour market data that Jobs and Skills Australia collects should include workforce supply side data from the school sector. If Jobs and Skills Australia is to have a clear picture and develop a national skills supply and demand model, it is imperative to understand how developing and emerging students are prepared to transition to meet future workforce needs. School students transitioning to training, education, and employment are a substantive supply side input. Understanding their preparation, pathway choices, and work readiness needs are essential for the creation of accurate and effective policies and investment.

It is role of schools is to prepare students for the workforce (jobs) and the role of tertiary education providers to prepare young people for employment (skills). The Australian Government currently provides career education funding to Australia’s jurisdictions so that students receive career education and are able to make informed subject and pathway choices. However, career education is not delivered consistently across jurisdictions or school sectors and the decisions students make about their subject and career choices in senior secondary school is not understood at a national level.  Without collecting and reporting on this data, Australia cannot know how well prepared its young people are to successfully pathway or what destination options they intend to pursue.  This information at the local, state, and national level is essential if the Government  to develop policies about the education, training, and work needs so that students can meet the needs of industry (demand-side requirements).

•	Employers are looking for a range of employment and employability skills. In 2018, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Hire Education report identified employers were overwhelmingly more interested in young employees with good motivation, attitude, and general skills like communication, than in specific knowledge of previous work experience. The Conference Board of Canada (2022) estimated that the unrealised value of skill vacancies in the Canadian economy was $25 billion in 2020, equivalent to 1.3 per cent of GDP. Of the 35 skill vacancy areas examined, almost all the top 20 were ‘soft skills‘ or ‘human skills‘.

Australian employers are also seeking a range of employment and employability skills, and this is relevant for young people who as a cohort are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed due to their limited work experience. In 2021, ACCE supported a leading construction program to attract secondary school students into entry-level work for a year with participating contract companies clamouring for employees. After successful promotion of the available opportunities to schools, students, and parents, only three students out of 19 applicants were hired. The three selected students were chosen for their intended academic destination plans despite the roles being entry positions. 
Australian employers are suffering from the John West Syndrome, only the best will do. Without a thorough understanding of employer needs and gaps, the Government cannot develop policy to address the mismatch between employer needs and the current ‘skills’ of Australia’s youth. Jobs and Skills Australia can support an increased understanding of these issues through the collection of employer demand data regarding employment and employability needs to compare to supply capacity and skills (for youth and other cohorts).

CICA can support Jobs and Skills Australia to establish classification terminology and measures that can be implemented and clearly understood by those involved across the supply and demand spectrum. 

These should be aligned to international information and reporting so Australia can understand its progress as a nation amongst other nations. 

Response:

Jobs and Skills Australia should engage with Australia’s national peak body, CICA to ensure that Australia’s lifelong learning and workforce planning has representation from endorsed career experts or entities with the career knowledge and expertise to support this work. 

Response:

No response provided.

Response:

Up-to-date labour market information is a critical output for Australia’s career practitioners working in schools and community. It is a requirement of the CICA Professional Standards for Australian Career Development Practitioners that accurate and timely labour market information is available and used to inform and support participants to make sound career decisions.  As a CICA member association, ACCE and other career members associations deliver this important information to members, schools, the community and partners, and include it in professional development. 

Timely labour market information can be distributed in presentation format, by Jobs and Skills Australia representatives, or via the development of an online platform including presentations and live interactive data.  Jobs and Skills Australia should seek input from CICA with respect to these outputs for the sector.
Jobs and Skills Australia should engage with employers and subject matter experts like ACCE and CICA to ensure that labour market information is understandable to employers based on a clear set of definitions and requirements that industry has had input into. CICA can support the development of standards and ensure they align to international frameworks, terminology, and can be reported nationally and internationally enabling Australia to understand its progress as a nation amongst other nations.

Response:

No response provided.