SKILLS CRISIS: Schools ignore transport and logistics study; barely any offer vocational courses
September 24, 2009
Schools and ignorant guidance councillors are ignoring transport and logistics study, increasing the challenge of a labour shortage-hit industry to recruit workers.
Research from the Transport and Logistics Industry Skills Council has found a reluctance by high schools to engage in transport-related studies, preferring more traditional school-based vocational subjects.
About 90 percent of all schools offer vocational education, the Council says, but only 1 percent have any relationship to the transport industry.
“Even with 36 percent of all senior secondary school students undertaking some form of VET program at school the combined outcome in terms of skills availability for the transport industry is miniscule,” the research report says.
“Our investigations revealed that while there are some excellent and often innovative projects that have been provided in schools there are few examples where long-term transport-related programs have made a real impact to the national figures on transport studies in schools,” the paper says.
The Council argues more energy needs to be applied to convince schools that transport and logistics jobs offer viable career pathways for students in vocational education.
The research found problems include a negative perception of the industry and a lack of awareness from career advisors of the available career paths
The Council wants closer school-industry relationships, which it says are the “cornerstone” of successful vocational education programs.
It is preparing to release a new vocation education resource designed to assist schools in adopting transport traineeships as part of their offerings.
The Do School Based VET Pathways Work in Transport and Logistics? study is available to download from the Skills Council website.