Catholic School Parents Victoria - Review of VCAL Pathways in Senior Secondary Schooling 2020

The following questions have been set by the Review board for feedback from key stakeholders in education. As our main stakeholders, parents of children in Catholic schools are able to provide written feedback for inclusion in the CSPV submission to the Victorian Department of Education and Training.

Please provide your answers as succinctly as possible based on the information or experience you may already have with the VCAL/VET system currently operating in our schools. If you feel you are unable to answer some questions, please place the letters N/A in the comment box or leave it blank.

The Review understands that vocational and applied learning is currently serving multiple purposes in Victoria. These include student retention, student engagement and re-engagement, inclusion and pos-school transitions for students. While these purposes may appear to be in tension, they should also be seen as a continuum towards a successful post-school transition. 

The Review understands that there is some concern the current VCAL structure is too complex and that there is a lack of rigour in relation to assessment and curriculum content, particularly within the Literacy and Numeracy Skills strand and reporting of VCAL achievement.
1.What should the primary objectives of VCAL, VET delivered to school students and School Based Assessment Tasks be?
2.How could we make VCAL less complex to understand for students, families, teachers and schools?
3.What improvements could be made to improve the quality and rigour of curriculum and assessment in VCAL and VET delivered to school students?
4.What are the relative benefits and risks of maintaining the dual-certificate framework (ie. VCAL and VCE) or moving to a single-certificate framework (with both academic and vocational pathways)?
5.If there was a single-certificate framework, how could a strengthened vocational pathway be described and designed?
6.How do we ensure that VCAL and VET delivered to school students continue to meet the needs of all students, including those with special needs or in special settings, who want to study in an applied stream?
7.Infrastructure, funding and administrative burden are raised as the key barriers to delivering vocational and applied learning. What specific supports would help schools to address these barriers?
8.What could we (government) do to support all secondary school students, including in rural and regional areas, to have access to high-quality applied options?
9.What reforms would encourage high-quality teachers and trainers with the right skills and experience to deliver applied learning in secondary schools?
10.What supports should we offer new and existing teachers and trainers to ensure they are qualified in best practice applied learning practices and feel prepared to deliver high-quality applied learning?
11.What is a successful outcome for VCAL students, VET delivered to school students and School Based Assessment Tasks students?
12.What additional data should schools and the system collect/be provided with in relation to students undertaking vocational and applied learning?
13.What reforms and actions would improve your perceptions, and public perceptions more generally, of vocational and applied learning pathways?
14.What could the system do to support students, families, employers and tertiary institutions to value and understand the benefits of vocational and applied learning pathways?
Current Progress,
0 of 14 answered