VCOSS

Your location: Home > What we do > Education and training

Education and training

Quality education and training plays a central role in ensuring that all children and young people have the skills they need to participate in community life.
It is also a crucial contributor to Victoria’s economic growth and can break the cycle of poverty. Young people who do not complete school or go onto further training, such as an apprenticeship, are at a greater risk of unemployment; earn less on average than those who have completed school or equivalent training; and experience a range of poorer social outcomes, such as poorer health.

Currently, not all children and young people receive the education and training they need. Children and young people who are vulnerable, who have complex and diverse needs, including students from low income families, who are Indigenous, from migrant or refugee families, who are in State care, and/or who have a disability have poorer education outcomes than those who do not experience disadvantage.
VCOSS advocates for the education and training system to better respond to the diverse needs of all Victorian children and young people. Specifically, we advocate for:
increased resources for schools in areas of disadvantage, and increased resources to support individual disadvantaged students within schools, in order to improve their educational outcomes;

increased resources for programs for children with a disability or those with particular educational needs;
the expansion of innovative programs that support school attendance by Indigenous students;
full funding for school programs in order to remove the need for financial contributions from students’ families;
better integration of school and work through the creation of additional TAFE places, an increase in the range of TAFE courses, and creating better pathways between school, TAFE, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Adult Community Education (ACE).

We raise these issues in our annual State Budget Submission. Download the education chapter in the VCOSS 2008-09 State Budget Submission. Following each budget VCOSS writes an analysis of the Government’s spending commitments.

VCOSS Submission to ‘Securing our future economic prosperity – Discussion paper on skills reform’

In April the State Government released an important discussion paper on skills reform, ‘Securing our future economic prosperity.’ VCOSS prepared the following submission to the discussion paper focusing on three main areas of concern to VCOSS and its members:

Ensuring priority of access for young people to vocational education and training (VET)
Ensuring equity of access to VET for those most disadvantaged from education, training and workforce participation
Ensuring that the proposed reforms do not impact negatively on the Victorian community sector

You can download a copy of the submission below.

VCOSS Submission to the Blueprint for Early Childhood Development and School Reform

The Victorian Government is currently developing a Blueprint for Early Childhood Development and School Reform. The Blueprint will be a five year reform agenda for early childhood services and schools focusing on improvement and integration throughout the service system, leading to improved outcomes for children and young people. VCOSS made a submission to the Blueprint consultation and we thank all of the VCOSS members who helped inform our response. VCOSS believes that the Blueprint has the potential to achieve:
The development of a cohesive framework to support and promote the wellbeing, learning, health and development of children and young people and their families;

Greater integration across the education and care continuum;
Strengthened linkages between all services that support and promote the learning, health and development and wellbeing of children and young people.

You can download a copy of the submission below.