By Allon Lee
A MOVE to lift the minimum schoolleaving age has been welcomed by Brimbank school principals.
Education Minister Lynne Kosky announced last week that students would now need to be 16, not 15, before they can leave school.
St Albans Secondary College principal Karen Moore welcomed the change.
“I think it is very positive,” she said.
“The evidence indicates that kids who leave school early are destined to longterm unemployment or periods of very low employment.
“I think the idea (of) employing 15yearolds is positive to some extent, but when they are 16 or 17 – when they can get full adult wages – they are then retrenched,” Ms Moore said.
Although few St Albans Secondary College students leave school at 15, Ms Moore said every effort is made to ensure those who do are not left in limbo.
“When we have the occasional student who wants to leave, we try to place them in further training,” Ms Moore said.
“We will transfer them to another school in Brimbank to give them another option if they appear to be going wrong in a school,” she said.
Lifting the minimum leaving age to 16 would ensure most students at the school complete Year 10, she said.
Kealba Secondary College principal Julie Williams said the change is good, provided the students could be motivated to stay on.
“Lots of kids who leave at 15 get fairly menial kinds of work because they are too young for apprenticeships, but a lot of them don’t really want to be at school, either,” Ms Williams said.
She said only a few students leave her school at 15 and most students were completing Year 12.
“Industry and apprenticeships are now not really accepting kids unless they have completed Year 12,” Ms Williams said.
“Even if they haven’t done extremely well (in school), there is still an industry expectation that they would have done Year 12 before they look for work.”
A decline in the number of apprenticeships and trades in the past 30 years has forced students to stay in school longer, Ms Williams said.
In the past, students who wanted to become nurses or bank clerks would leave at the end of Year 11 and only those wanting to study at university would complete Year 12, she said.
“The government’s aim is to have 90 per cent of students to complete Year 12 by 2010,” she said.
It is expected the change in the minimum schoolleaving age will be introduced for the 2007 school year.
