While the importance of career education is emphasised in Australia’s National curriculum for secondary students and the Future Ready Strategy, it can be difficult to locate information about the current state of play for careers education in Australian secondary schools. This snapshot uses data collected from 259 schools (57% government, 43% non-government; 63% located in a metropolitan area, 37% in a non-metropolitan area) in the first wave of the GENERATION study to report on careers education and activities that Australian students have access to in their preparation for the future.
95% of schools surveyed had one or more specific careers staff (counsellors) at their school.
Over 70% of schools report visits from universities and taking students to visit universities to explore course options.
One in five schools overall were completely confident in their ability to meet students’ need for career and further study advice.
Schools were asked who had the main responsibility for providing careers guidance at their school, with options that included “All teachers share the responsibility”, “Specific teachers have the main responsibility”, “We have one or more specific career guidance counsellors employed at school” and “We have one or more specific career guidance counsellors who visit the school”. The vast majority of responding schools (95%) had one or more specific career guidance counsellors employed at the schools, with the remaining schools indicating that all teachers shared responsibility for careers guidance (5%). Responses suggest that, among this sample of schools at least, having specific career guidance counsellors may be more common in schools in metropolitan locations and the non-government sector.
Schools were asked about activities they provide around further education options, including visits to and from universities, advice about financial support for students and mentoring programs around study and careers. Almost 80% of responding schools had visits from universities with the aim of providing course information to prospective students, and these visits appeared to be equally common in metropolitan and non-metropolitan and government and non-government schools.
Among schools without a specific career guidance counsellor, visits from and to universities appeared less common than among schools with dedicated career guidance staff on hand.
Providing advice to individual students about the financial support available for their further studies was also undertaken in most schools, regardless of location or sector. Mentoring programs that matched students with a more experienced person (a mentor) to discuss their future education and career options were more commonly reported by metropolitan schools than non-metropolitan schools.
Schools were asked how confident they were in their ability to meet student needs for advice about future study and career options, and many of expressed confidence here – just over 30% were quite confident, 42% very confident and almost 20% completely confident in their school’s ability to meet career advice needs of students. While confidence levels were fairly similar across school location and sector, there appeared to be differences in the confidence levels of schools with and without specific career guidance counsellors on staff. While there were no schools without specific career guidance staff who were completely confident in their ability to meet student needs for advice, 21% of schools with specific career guidance counsellors expressed complete confidence in their ability to support the needs of their students in career guidance.