Key Points
Labor will return career education and pathways educators to schools and students.
We will do this by creating a Career Pathway Centre within the Department of Education, Children and Young People, full of career educators who meet with students online and in-person.
A decade ago, new Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff cut 60 career advisor roles, and now Tasmania’s youth unemployment rate has risen to 15.6%.
Labor’s plan will:
- Employ 30 career educators around the state.
- Focus on building career education into the curriculum, including workplace rights.
Why we need it
After a decade of Liberal Government, Tasmania’s unemployment rate is 5.2 percentage points above the national average, and transition to work has remained a consistent challenge for Tasmanian young people coming out of school.
“A Labor Government will employ 30 career educators around the state”
One of Jeremy Rockliff’s first acts as Education Minister was to cut career educator roles and replace them with a computer program. Now, as Premier, he’s doing nothing about our high youth unemployment.
That’s why Labor will step in a re-establish career education in Tasmanian schools.
The details
A Labor Government will create a Career Pathway Centre within the Department of Education, Children and Young People, staffed with 30 career educators from around the state. They will:
- Meet in-person and online with individual students and groups of students.
- Produce online information sessions about topics such as trade apprenticeships, moving to cities for higher educations, or emerging career paths.
- Support students from year 7 onwards in their decision-making processes so they can make informed subject, course and career choices in later years and beyond.
- Help build career education into the general curriculum by working with teachers on professional development.
Students will gain:
- Access to high-quality career education to prepare them for life beyond school through more informed career and pathway decisions.
- Support to understand their strengths and interests.
- The skills and capabilities to navigate multiple careers, and the challenges of the rapidly changing world of work.
- An understanding of their rights at work.
The total cost of this commitment is $3.5 million per annum.