Skip to main content
Child Sponsorship Donate now

Opinion: What's next for school leavers who don't go to uni?

20 January 2016

With the holiday period drawing to a close, it’s back to work for most of us. But for many thousands of 2015 high school graduates it can be the time when reality strikes - school is over and it’s time to find a job.

If not contemplating further study, some of our young people will already have secured their place within Australia’s workforce. For many more, their employment prospects are looking bleak in a highly complex and competitive job market.

I particularly worry about those young people who are growing up in entrenched disadvantage. In reality the odds are stacked against them.

Living in financial hardship can severely affect a young person’s educational outcomes and their longer-term employment and life outcomes. While they’re living in our poorest communities, their families may also be dealing with long-term illness, disability, or struggling to cope with long-term unemployment.  What they experience daily is mostly hidden from the rest of us, but all young people want to build the best life they can.

One young man I know put it so succinctly, “All kids, no matter their background, their postcode or what their parents do for a living want to be somebody.” Paul, a recent university graduate, was also a student whose education had been supported by The Smith Family over many years.

So how can we help other young people like Paul to get the futures they deserve?

We can make a start by supporting disadvantaged students to develop the skills they need, so when they start school they’re not already behind.

Then, as they progress through their school years, we can help them be motivated to attend their classes and keep them engaged with their learning so they have the best chance to finish Year 12. This means working closely with our poorest families year after year. This means providing long-term financial, personal and educational support to young people to help them overcome the barriers they face and give them the best chance to achieve fulfilling and productive futures.

Right now, however, we’re simply not doing enough to create real change on a national level.

There is a huge discrepancy between the number of young people fully engaged in work or study according to their economic status. Forty-two per cent of 17–25 year olds from the most disadvantaged areas are not fully engaged in work or study, compared to 17 per cent of young people from the most advantaged areas.

Poor children must be at the forefront of our minds in our national discussions about how to tackle Australia’s highest level of youth unemployment in nearly 20 years.

I’m talking about young people like Paul who, with the right support, has been able to escape chronic generational poverty. He finished Year 12, he finished university. Incredibly, he realised his dream of a career in law.

This isn’t the reality, however, for a staggering number of young Australians, regardless of background, unable to obtain paid employment after they leave school. This isn’t the reality for those unable to secure a job in their chosen field and remain underemployed.

So we need to address the current school-to-work transition approaches that are failing our young people, particularly disadvantaged young people.

Currently, systemic support for those youth who are at risk of poor labour market outcomes begins when they become unemployed – but this is not good enough. It’s too late to address the issue after the class of Year 12 closes the school gates.

Supporting young people to make informed decisions about their future pathways needs to happen well before they try to enter the workforce. That’s why we welcome the Federal Government’s new Empowering YOUth Initiatives – to better enable community organisations to assist vulnerable young people at risk of becoming long-term unemployed.

But business and the broader community also have key roles to play.

Many of the businesses and universities The Smith Family partners with feel this responsibility keenly. They, along with our corporate and community volunteers, are providing much-needed support to disadvantaged young people – through offering work experiences and career mentoring. This approach is about showing students what their futures could look like well before they finish school.

Working together we can provide young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with the knowledge, skills, resources and networks they need to avoid unemployment.

And together we can influence and positively change the current approaches affecting the development of skills and capacities helping more young people make a smooth transition to work.

If by doing this, more young people like Paul can succeed, then we are building a stronger and more secure future for us all.

Dr Lisa O’Brien
Chief Executive Officer
The Smith Family

Published in the Sydney Morning Herald - 20 January 2016 & Newcastle Herald - 21 January 2016

Media contacts:

Andrew Dickson | National Media Manager (National) - 0421 285 529 | andrew.dickson@thesmithfamily.com.au
Carla Horton | Senior Media Advisor (QLD & WA) - 0423 618 776 | carla.horton@thesmithfamily.com.au
Reid Jermyn | Media Advisor (VIC, SA & NT) - 0412 803 566 | reid.jermyn@thesmithfamily.com.au 
Ben Chenoweth | Senior Media Advisor (NSW, ACT & TAS) - 0413 346 934 | ben.chenoweth@thesmithfamily.com.au

The Smith Family is a national children’s education charity that helps young Australians experiencing disadvantage to create better futures for themselves through harnessing the power of education. We partner with around 800 Australian schools and work with over 162,000 children and young people experiencing disadvantage access our education support programs to help them overcome . For more information, visit thesmithfamily.com.au