review for a state education department of career education in schools

In 2017, dandolo reviewed career education delivered in government schools for a state education department. dandolo director Joe Connell (JC) and Senior Consultant Jade Peters (JP) worked on the job. They sat down with Michelle Stratemeyer (MS) to talk about it.

MS: Perhaps we can start with an overview of the project?

JP: Sure. The project originated from a meeting between a group of students and the State Minister for Education. The group represented students from regional and rural areas. They raised a range of concerns about public education, one of which was the topic of career education and counselling, which they felt was inadequate in its current form.

The Minister took a personal interest in the issue of careers education. To follow up, the Department commissioned an independent review of the current offerings in order to improve service delivery. dandolo submitted a proposal, with the support of some expert advisors, and we were successful.

MS: How did dandolo approach the brief?

JP: An initial challenge was how to scope the work. There was a real issue  to deal with because career education can be defined really broadly. In some senses all education contributes to a student’s progression towards a career. But the intent of this project was to be narrower. So we narrowed our definition to  formal career education structures and processes.

After we narrowed down to our scope, we reviewed the existing literature on what best practices in career education should incorporate. We then used this as our framework to determine the gap between the current offerings and the ‘gold standard’ ideal version of career education.

JC: For a review project like this we are always looking for a set of reference points against which to judge the status quo. In some projects that is a set of predetermined client objectives, or a set of criteria. In this project best practice played that role. Using this framework also allowed us to choose best practice that reflected the best and most up to date understanding about what works in career education. That was critical, because it helped us show that career education hadn’t changed in schools, even when the world around those schools was changing.

MS: With your framework established, what did you do next?

JP: We did a highly intensive, consuming program of fieldwork. Stakeholders included government, career educators, agencies, and students. We ran several focus groups with students to canvas their views on what the current approach to career education lacked, and how it could be improved. Students brought up the prospect that many traditional occupations would rapidly be automated, moved offshore, or evolve beyond the skills being taught in schools. They also thought careers were no longer likely to be linear and are now characterised by varying forms of employment. These types of comments showed that students were aware of the rapidly evolving work context that serves as a backdrop to career education in this era.

Our consultations also included engagement with those responsible for delivering career education in schools. For example, our team attended a career education conference, which allowed us an opportunity to talk with experts in the field. This gave us a sense of the divergence between those delivering career education, compared to the students receiving it.

JC: The engagement with young people directly was a really important part of the project, and Jade and I had a lot of fun facilitating focus groups with year 10s. Even though education is unambiguously for young people, it’s surprisingly rare how often they are consulted about its delivering. We’re doing more and more to incorporate a genuine ‘student voice’ into the education work that we do.

JP: Yes, and the students were really honest and insightful. The focus groups also yielded some of my favourite verbatim quotes like “careers classes are a bludge”.

JC: Not being from Australia that was a new term for me to learn and Jade had to tell me what it meant. But then I was determined to use it in the report.

MS: So, how did the status quo stack up against best practice?

JC: Like lots of things in a devolved schooling system the most honest answer is probably: it varies. We found some schools who were doing great things. They were employing high quality staff and running great programs. In others, career education was an afterthought, or a compliance exercise.

JP: Right, and even in schools that were doing well, their model of career education was probably struggling to keep up with the realities of the modern world. A lot of career education is focused on narrowing choices. Choose your Year 11 subjects, select your university course, and push for an ATAR. These days, with careers less defined, and the shape of the economy we will all work in less certain, we need to be focusing on a broad skillset, not a narrow one.

JC: There were other things too. Career education typically starts to late, is often uninspiring – or a bludge – in the eyes of students and isn’t experiential enough. And, when I say the answer is “it varies”, the schools that are least equipped were really not providing students with much at all.

MS: What did you recommend as a result?

JC: We had a suite of recommendations. Some of them were about reframing existing provision. To encourage career action plans to be of higher quality, we suggested schools be required to send them home alongside school reports. And we proposed standards for qualifications of career counsellors.

JP: Probably our most transformational recommendation was to have formal career education start earlier – year 9 or 10, say – and be more exploratory. About what students want and care about, and what they’re good at. That way, the intention is that by the time the come to make the ‘narrowing’ choices like what subject to take, or whether to stay in school, they have a better sense of possibilities.

MS: What came out of your recommendations?

JC: Our report fed directly into the Department’s budget process. Virtually all of our recommendations were picked up in a $109m budget bid. That included reprioritisation of existing spend, but new services too, especially for younger students.

JP: It was very satisfying to see the tangible impact that our work had. The changes are still be rolled out. We will be very interested to see whether they have their desired impact.

JC: On the one hand $109m is a lot of money. On the other, it doesn’t take that many young people being pointed in the right career direction, rather than the wrong one, or staying for an extra year or two at school, or transitioning into training well, to have that investment pay dividends.

MS: Finally, what do you think makes this an example of an iconic dandolo project?

JP: I really appreciated that we could bring the student voice to the foreground. Often, this is the perspective that goes missing, so we wanted to make sure they were heard. Interestingly, it was the student voice that was most aligned with the best practice guidelines that we identified from the academic and industry literature. For example, students had views on how to modernise and improve career planning for the current employment context that were very similar to expert views. In contrast, we saw more conservative, traditional thinking from decision-makers and practitioners.

Second, this was a project that really cemented our approach to focus groups. It was an opportunity to refine and test our engagement strategy, and given how clearly the student voice came through, was a success. I think both of these elements make this an iconic example of our work.

JC: And this is a project where we can draw a direct line between our work and a major policy and spending initiative that will touch every young person that attends a government school. Being able to say that is a huge privilege and I look back with real pride on the work we did here.