Projects

Schools, VET and Partnerships: Capacity Building in Rural and Regional Areas

In 2004, NCVER commissioned the AYRC to investigate partnerships with schools and their communities in seven rural and regional areas. These seven partnerships were located in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

It was found that three different models were used to organise school-VET partnerships in the rural and regional communities included in the research. A regional cluster or specialised program model was found in regional communities, while a whole of community model was characteristic of rural communities.

Regardless of the model adopted, both rural and regional communities needed to respond to common community issues, such as retaining young people in the school and the local area, responding to local skill shortages, encouraging local businesses to support young people, improving young people's work networks and creating opportunities for young people to contribute positively to the community.

This project was carried out in partnership with Kathleen Stacey in South Australia and Murray Lake from Western Australia. The report of this study was published in 2006 by NCVER (based in Adelaide). It uses case studies from six rural and regional areas in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia to look at the impact of schools and VET on building community capacity. It was found that communities have developed different models to organise school-VET partnerships and that rural areas are more likely to adopt a whole of community model while regional areas have used a regional cluster or specialised model. Successful partnerships responded to community issues including the need to keep young people at school as well as providing a skills base for the local area.

The report, together with two support documents, including an extended literature review and case study descriptions, is available on the NCVER website at:  www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1686.html

Contact: Helen Stokes

Contact: h.stokes@unimelb.edu.au