Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a member of the Standing Committee on Education and Training, I rise to speak on the tabling motion of the report put forward by the committee entitled Adolescent overload? I see the member for Cunningham, the chair of the committee, here. It was a pleasure working with her on this particular report. It is an important report that goes to all of our desires to see that our children and students in Australian schools get the best possible education they can.

It is probably relevant that this report—Adolescent overload?is tabled this week. My son is on his schoolies week down in the south-west of Western Australia at the moment. If he is listening: please do not overload, Jarrad; take note of this report. It is an important report that investigates how students are coping with combining school and work. For a lot of them, obviously, the school year is over, but it was interesting to discover that Australia is one of only a few countries with a high proportion of students who take outside work. The others in the OECD include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark. I know that this affects many young people within my electorate of Swan; I have over 65 schools in my electorate, which makes it fairly school oriented, and a lot of people will be taking interest in this report.

The inquiry was conducted with a healthy degree of consultation. There were 13 public hearings across the country: seven in Canberra and one each in Adelaide, Perth, Burnie, Melbourne, Brisbane and Port Kembla. Importantly, the public hearings took evidence from the students themselves. I am pleased to say that 2,765 students completed the online survey of which 1,722 were engaged in some form of work outside school. So this report is based on plenty of evidence from a decent investigation, and I thank the committee secretariat in particular for facilitating it.

Statistics provided to the department of education show that in 2007 the proportion of students aged between 15 and 19 who were working was 37 per cent. That breaks down into 31 per cent of males and 42 per cent of females. The survey revealed that almost half of young people were employed in retail with another third in the fast food or hospitality sectors.

The report identified a number of overlapping reasons for this. One is the desire to earn money. During the committee’s student forums, a primary reason given for working was to save money, and the biggest priority was buying a car. I am sure many of the students also used it to pay their mobile bills as well. Another reason was the quest for financial independence, or increased personal autonomy. A girl from Perth noted that it was good to not have to ask her parents for money all the time; it was her money and she could do what she wanted with it. Other students maintained that their early experience in the workplace would help their job prospects after study. For a small proportion of students, working was cited as a means to providing greater financial security for the family. It is a pity that in a country like this students feel they have to work to help support their family.

The report also considered the positive and negative aspects of part-time work. Positive aspects for students included enhancing confidence and self-esteem, contributing to financial wellbeing, facilitating the development of social networks, gaining useful knowledge and independence in exercising greater responsibility and self-reliance, instilling a work effort and attitude, and developing work and organisational skills, including time management skills.

The report noted that many young people managed to successfully fit in work with study. A study by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in 2001 suggested that 63.2 per cent of students found balancing the two not too hard, but at the same time it was interesting to see that a lot of the students who were in the middle socioeconomic class went from working really hard in year 11 to finishing work at the end of year 11 in order to concentrate on their studies in year 12. However, there comes a point when too many hours make life too difficult. An LSA research report in 2003 showed that males who work five to 15 hours per week during year 12 are 40 per cent less likely to complete year 12 than those who do not.

Part of the report concentrates on the confusion students have as to how many hours they should be working. Some students said that they received conflicting advice from their parents, who encouraged them to go out and get a job, and their teachers, who encouraged them to concentrate more on their studies. It was interesting to note that some of the students did not want their teachers to know that they were working; they felt it was their own lives and they kept it apart from their school. Particular responsibility lies with parents and schools to provide good advice in this instance. The survey responses showed that a large majority of students with part-time jobs believe that working impacts on the amount of time they have available for study.

The report contains a number of recommendations, most of which call for some further research or action from the Australian government. Recommendation 2 is:

That the Australian Government develop and implement a national generic skills passport for secondary students to document the employability skills they develop through activities undertaken outside school. These activities should encompass paid and unpaid work (including community/volunteer activities and work for the family business), sporting and recreational activities and other life experiences.

It is important that the skills that students pick up are properly recognised. As an ex-employer, I know that it is not always easy to judge someone’s readiness to work or their employability. If this recognition of previous experience were graded, it would give the employer more tools to make a better employee choice.

One of the highlights of the inquiry for me was the visit to Adelaide, to the Para Hills High School, to talk to the students and some of the parents there. I also talked to Shandell and Nikita, former students who went back to the school that day, and to people from a variety of other schools represented there—Smithfield Plains High School, Craigmore High School, Salisbury High School and one student from Paralowie R-12 School. There were some TAFE directors there as well, so it was a well-organised forum.

Another highlight for me was at Leeming Senior High School in my state of Western Australia, where I caught up with Mr Steve Wright, who I see around my electorate a bit. It was good to catch up with him. It was also interesting to see the representative from Hungry Jack’s there, the traineeship manager. It gave her an opportunity to hear from young people who work in Hungry Jack’s. The buffer between the workers and the traineeship manager was obvious, because the traineeship manager was not aware of some of the information that came out from the students because it had not been getting back to her through the manager. It was good to have those people there, particularly the Commissioner for Children and Young People; her senior policy officer; Louise Atherton; and people from the Department of Education.

Another highlight for me was the student forum in Canberra, which I thought was really good. We got some great feedback from students, particularly looking at some of the problems with not their knowing their rights in the workplace. My son, who has recently started some employment, had not even considered thinking about what his rights were or how much he should be paid, but I gave him some ideas on that. It is an important issue for students to be aware of.

As we all know, the education of our students is imperative, and we need to make sure that this report has an influence on that. As I go around towards the end of the year doing school visits, as I know a lot of the members here do, I always try and tell the students—and I give the same advice to my son—not to be afraid to seek the truth. There are a lot of people who will give you impressions on both sides of arguments, and young people should make sure that they always seek the truth. I see the member for Gippsland is here. I know of his particular interest in youth education and youth allowance. I am sure he will talk about that during his speech.

In conclusion, this report has provided some useful information from students on their interaction with the working world. It will be a useful tool for students and parents across the country and should be considered by the government. I commend the report.

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