By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
A GROUP of six Fountain Gate Secondary College students wants to change the way career education is taught in high schools and improve student disengagement from a younger age.
A part of the Future Problem Solving International Conference Year 9 students Jason, Evi, Lauryn, Nada, Shannon and Kristy have been working on their community problem since March 2014.
The team have chosen student disengagement and career pathways to take to the June conference in the United States where they will compete against more than 2000 other likeminded students from around the world.
“When we brainstormed ideas, we realised a lot of the problems stemmed from that, we found it was the root of many problems,” Kristy said.
Last year, the problem solvers asked their fellow Year 8 students, ‘Would you have more passion if you knew where you were going and your school was helping you to achieve that?’
With a unanimous, yes, the group decided a careers hub would be formed for the wider community and students of all ages.
“Because the question was ‘would you be’ it meant the school wasn’t delivering that for students right now and that’s what we’re working to fix,” Kristy said.
“Students start learning about careers in Year 10, and that’s when a lot of students drop out because they weren’t engaged, it’s too late,” Nada said.
Minister for Education James Merlino met the group on Tuesday 28 April in support of the $15,000 Andrews Labor Government grant towards the program.
“We’re proud to be supporting the college’s Future Problem Solving Program. It gives students the tools they need to achieve and shape positive futures for themselves and their community,” Mr Merlino said.
The free community careers hub in the VCE centre is under renovation, and the students are hoping it will become a welcoming environment for all students, parents and community members who can use it.
“It will be included in the school timetable and will be run like a class, we’d like to get information out to the younger students because they don’t get enough from an early age,” Evi said.
“The hub will teach younger students about prerequisites, what classes lead to what degrees and which electives would be best suited to what they want to do,” Jason said.
English teacher Stephen Hughes said he would never have predicted the students choosing this topic but was very impressed.
“I think they have really hit the nail on the head, I totally believe that there is a connection between youth disengagement and youth unemployment- I think this insight could only have come from the students themselves,” Mr Hughes said.
The group said many Year 9 students regretted the electives they chose.
“The electives for this year were just brought upon us and we had no idea what we wanted to do and we had no explanation to the process,” Shannon said.
“I think some of us are unhappy with what we chose now because we just picked it because the name sounded interesting from the title,” Evi said.
Question and answer sessions are now being implemented in the school due to the group’s findings and the community careers hub has been added to the school’s five year strategic plan.
