tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/p-tech-schools-10977/articlesP-TECH schools – The Conversation2015-04-27T19:48:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407502015-04-27T19:48:24Z2015-04-27T19:48:24ZP-TECHs a positive move for those who don’t want to go to university<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79411/original/image-20150427-23936-1uzsj1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">IBM has pioneered P-TECHs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com.au</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When in the US last year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited a P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) in Brooklyn partly funded by IBM. He said Australia could benefit from this type of school education model. Last week Assistant Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham was in talks to open a <a href="http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/geelong-schools-set-to-welcome-american-p-tech-teaching-model/story-fnjuhovy-1227312126976">P-TECH in Geelong</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ptechnyc.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1">P-TECHs</a> are secondary schools that have teaching staff working alongside people from different companies so the world of work is represented in the schooling experience. Rather than narrow job training, P-TECHs teach content as well as its application to work. The schools aim to be relevant and useful for employment purposes.</p>
<h2>The federal government’s long technical schools campaign</h2>
<p>The P-TECH program is yet another step in the government’s plan to re-institute technical schooling at the secondary level. The policy interest in doing this has existed for at least a decade, but with no real sustained success.</p>
<p>The Howard government announced in the 2004 federal election campaign its intention to establish and fund Australian technical colleges and committed significant funds.</p>
<p>The former Rudd-Gillard government’s trade training centres policy sought to create 511 trade training centres in secondary schools. The program was stopped when the Abbott government gained office.</p>
<p>The major problem Commonwealth governments face in this policy area is constitutional. Education is a state responsibility.</p>
<p>A “vertical fiscal imbalance” exists in Australia - meaning the federal government has more money at its disposal than the state governments despite the states having a large number of responsibilities.</p>
<p>This means states will often agree to these policies and to the grants that come with them in order to secure more funds for the operation of schools. </p>
<p>The first time the Commonwealth government involved itself in school education was during the First World War. With the passing of the Australian Soldiers Repatriation Act, partnerships with state education departments were made to provide technical and vocational training to returned service men. </p>
<p>It was agreed the training should take place in state technical schools. As a result of this initiative, state education departments acquired additional buildings and equipment.</p>
<p>The current pilot program to trial the American P-Tech model comes with a modest funding commitment and represents an interesting next step in the decade-long push by the Commonwealth to progress technical education as a secondary school option.</p>
<p>Birmingham seems to be approaching this policy area differently to the initiatives of the technical college and trade training centre approaches of the previous two governments. While courting business, he is also seeking the cooperation of the states and communities where the P-TECHs will be established.</p>
<p>The P-Tech <a href="http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/geelong-schools-set-to-welcome-american-p-tech-teaching-model/story-fnjuhovy-1227312126976">earmarked for Geelong</a> seems to have local community support, along with local employers and businesses expressing interest.</p>
<p>Victorian Premier Dan Andrews and his government may be receptive to the pilot given their recent election <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/labors-tafe-and-technical-school-plan-20141109-11hwyb.html">promise to establish ten techs</a>.</p>
<p>The P-Tech model in Australia will likely differ from how it operates in the US on several fronts. While the idea of making technical education a secondary school option that includes a sub-degree qualification such as a diploma, advanced diploma or associate degree, this will happen through existing institutional arrangements as controlled by the states. </p>
<p>Unlike the American P-TECH, dedicated new sites are not being mooted. Rather existing state secondary schools and TAFE institutes are being considered.</p>
<h2>New policy needed for those who don’t want to go to university</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-from-victorias-tafe-mistakes-34646">parlous situation of the VET market and TAFEs</a> indicates that a new policy approach is warranted. This is especially important for school-aged students whose education goals and priorities do not involve university. </p>
<p>When TAFEs were created in the 1970s, again through a Commonwealth government initiative, this meant that technical education went post-secondary. No longer did technical schools or colleges exist to meet the brief of technical education in the secondary school context.</p>
<p>The P-TECH model decisively moves technical education back into a secondary education context and experience. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) will be a focus, which is somewhat paradoxical given technical schools and colleges pioneered STEM in Australia before universities became so prevalent. The involvement of businesses will make work a central tenet of this schooling experience.</p>
<p>In the current pilot, IBM will provide the real-world context of work that is so central to a technical education. IBM is not funding but rather providing in-kind assistance and opportunities for work placements.</p>
<p>Rather than just a general “academic” curriculum, technical schools allow students to see how science is applied in everyday use and at work.</p>
<p>Expanding options for students to stay in schooling can only ever be valuable, so providing a pathway for those students who don’t necessarily see themselves going to university is a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Pardy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>P-TECHs provide a much-needed pathway for students who don’t want to go to university.John Pardy, Education Lecturer and Researcher, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338392014-11-09T19:29:45Z2014-11-09T19:29:45ZWhy tech schools won’t seem to go away<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63794/original/p3bw4ctt-1415225432.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both sides of government have shown commitment to bringing back tech schools. If they're so great why did we get rid of them in the first place?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://victoriancollections.net.au/items/4ff50da42162ef0b30f92f9a">Turning and Fitting class Collingwood Technical School 1914 - Victorian Collections</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Prime Minister Abbott went to the United States in June this year, he visited a P-Tech High school in Brooklyn. He said <a href="http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/prime-minister-tony-abbott-planning-usstyle-high-schools-in-australia/story-fnjco7gt-1226951642962">such schools</a> were a “valuable education model for us to consider in Australia”.</p>
<p>In the upcoming Victorian election, the leader of the opposition Daniel Andrews is promising to open <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria-state-election-2014/labor-leader-daniel-andrews-pledges-13-billion-to-make-victoria-education-state/story-fnocxssc-1227102669875">ten tech schools</a>. That both politicians, across the political divide, and from a state and national perspective are extolling the virtues of technical education points to a yearning to proffer an expanded vision for secondary schooling.</p>
<h2>Where did tech schools come from, and what happened to them?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/36092">history of technical education</a> in Australia commenced well before Federation as was so carefully documented by Stephen Murray-Smith in 1966. Each colony developed technical education and technical schools that grew out of the Mechanics Institutes. Variously these institutions were known as Technical Colleges, Schools of Mines, the Workingmen’s Colleges, and Schools of Domestic Science and Technical Schools. After Federation, each newly minted state created its own state education system.</p>
<p>It is as a result of technical education and its development that today across all Australian cities and centres there are universities that grew out of technical colleges, and secondary schools that started life as technical schools. Colleges provided “higher” technical education while schools offered “junior” technical education as a secondary school option.</p>
<p>The demise of secondary technical schooling gradually occurred between the 1970s and 1990s and was given impetus by the formation of Australian TAFE by the Whitlam government. Technical and Further Education (TAFE) was a Commonwealth funded government initiative that put technical education on a national and a tertiary footing. This alleviated the states from the financial challenges involved in financing expensive secondary technical schools.</p>
<p>Issues of social equity and equality of opportunity had earmarked secondary technical education as detrimental. It was thought that young people attending tech schools were being unfairly “streamed” and denied access to the educational opportunities available through the pathway from high schools to universities. So, overtime technical education in Australia after the creation of TAFE became a post secondary school tertiary education option.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63708/original/fx3dd9vm-1415163630.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Telegraphy school in Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofvictoria_collections/8434654026">Flickr/State Library of Victoria</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The former Howard government sought to re-introduce technical schooling through the creation <a href="http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2007-08_Audit_Report_03.pdf">Australian Technical Colleges</a> across the country in 2004. At about the same time the State Labor Minister for Education, the Honourable Lyn Kosky also set out to establish <a href="http://www.education.vic.gov.au/training/learners/courses/pages/tecs.aspx">Technical Education Centres</a> for secondary school students into some TAFE institutes in Victoria.</p>
<p>It is not an accident that for Victoria, in particular, technical education continues to be viewed as a vote getter. Unlike any other Australian state, the Victorian secondary school system and its dual character of high schools and technical schools persisted until 1991. In Victoria technical schools lasted because they were established early and were well organised in making schooling relevant and practical for purposes other than university admission.</p>
<h2>The benefits of tech schools</h2>
<p>The difference with secondary technical schools was that universities did not control them and they were not beholden to university admission requirements. Technical schools were local in orientation and connected to industry and employment in ways that the general education on offer in high schools was not.</p>
<p>When reintroducing technical education, through the Technical Education Centres in 2006 Victorian Education Minister Lyn Kosky said in <a href="http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Assembly/Jul-Oct%202006/Assembly%20Extract%208%20August%202006%20from%20Book%2010.pdf">parliament,</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is probably fair to say that we lost something when technical schools were closed previously.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What was lost was different ways younger students could stay engaged with schooling that was not about narrow academic success measured through an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).</p>
<p>When technical schools existed alongside high schools the multiple social purposes of secondary schooling were apparent. Some young people pursued the traditional track to university while others explored the worlds of work while learning things like television production or metal work or any other skill that piqued their curiosity. In an era when young people are being schooled more than any prior generations, schooling needs to be, in tangible ways more than just focused on university admission.</p>
<p>Australia’s tertiary education systems have expanded and diversified in the period since the closure of secondary technical schools. Universities across Australia have multiplied in type and numbers, as have the numbers of people studying in them. Added to this in the past decade has been TAFE as both a provider of <a href="http://www.ncver.edu.au/wps/portal/vetdataportal/restricted/publicationContent/!ut/p/a0/hY-9CsIwGACfxaFj-NLYpu0ogqRdBKvQZJGvSdRoSX-t-vaiuzgeHBwHCipQHmd3xsm1HpsPK37MQ7YWIqLFVghO82Sz35XisKQhBwlSJT8FEUMJClSnnQFpM8wsmpowY5BELM0IIteEaYxPpmYcDULxr1iBdNe-VytQuvWTfU5QeT3b4ThecLAmoN29bpz-LowBZSFPoLthnb4eizc5YVun/">higher education</a> and tertiary learning.</p>
<p>Only technical education at the secondary school level can engage young people in schooling experiences that allow them to safely explore in practical and skilled ways the worlds of work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Pardy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Prime Minister Abbott went to the United States in June this year, he visited a P-Tech High school in Brooklyn. He said such schools were a “valuable education model for us to consider in Australia…John Pardy, Education Lecturer and Researcher, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/279122014-06-16T04:26:58Z2014-06-16T04:26:58ZCorporate highs: the US P-TECH model for schools in Australia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51129/original/zm79hzm9-1402884098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Could company-funded P-TECH schools like in the US work in Australia? Is this where education is headed?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ibm_media/8116991369">Flickr/IBMphoto24</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited a <a href="http://www.ptechnyc.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1">P-TECH</a> (Pathways in Technology Early Career High) school in New York last week, hinting it’s a model of education <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2014/06/12/prime-minister-doorstop-interview-p-tech-brooklyn">we should consider implementing</a> in Australia. The school, partly funded by IBM and training students to suit the company’s needs, is different to anything we have in Australia. While the P-TECH model would be feasible here, the model risks confusing economic needs with educational ones.</p>
<h2>The P-TECH model in the US</h2>
<p>The approach taken by P-TECH has generated a lot of interest since it was opened in 2011. It already has a name, <a href="http://www.ptechnyc.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1">the P-TECH model</a>, and is being copied in cities around the US. New York State, for example, has developed partnerships for a further <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/press/08282013Students-for-High-Skill-Jobs">16 schools</a> like the original.</p>
<p>The P-TECH model sounds a little confusing at first: both private and public money is used to fund high schools that also give university degrees. P-TECH schools are situated in low socio-economic areas and have a stated aim of helping students to become “job ready” for a particular sector of employment that has a shortage of workers. Existing schools in the US have focused on training for the technology sector and new schools are also looking to train workers for manufacturing and health care.</p>
<p>The school that Abbott visited, for example, was funded by the NYC Department of Education, the City University of New York and the private company IBM. The school goes for two years beyond the equivalent of our Year 12. Graduates receive corporate mentoring during their study, an associate degree in technology (similar to a diploma) upon graduation, as well as a job interview with IBM.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51151/original/zzvmg52w-1402889519.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">“The school that will get you a job.”</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Time Magazine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Politicians in particular are big proponents of the P-TECH model because it looks like a win-win situation. The nation’s economy gets a supply of workers in sectors where there are perceived shortages. The private business entering into the partnership gets positive publicity and a supply of qualified labour. The state gets to have the cost of education significantly subsidised by private enterprise. And the student gets a qualification for the cost of just two years’ extra study.</p>
<p>While the ideas in these schools are not new, their integration in the P-TECH model is generating a buzz in the US to the point that the latest version in Chicago made the <a href="http://time.com/7066/the-school-that-will-get-you-a-job/">front page of TIME magazine</a>. The question is now being asked whether the model might have a place in Australia.</p>
<h2>Is it feasible in Australia?</h2>
<p>While we don’t have anything like the culture of philanthropy seen in the US, businesses see this model as much more of an investment (in publicity, recruitment and training) than charity. There would likely be interested parties, especially given the huge positive coverage received by IBM in the US.</p>
<p>The challenge for implementing these schools is in the grey area they occupy between high schools and universities. In Australia, only accredited institutions can award degrees. Any P-TECH type school would require either accreditation or exemption – this would be difficult for a school to obtain without significant political willpower. </p>
<p>Perhaps more to the point, it is difficult to see the need for schools that give degrees in Australia, where the separation of school and further education still serves the needs of both students and the national interest.</p>
<h2>Does the P-TECH model have educational merit?</h2>
<p>We’ve been talking about a new type of school, yet still have not mentioned educational value. This is partly because the first cohort at P-TECH hasn’t graduated yet so not much is known about outcomes. Yet we can consider likely implications.</p>
<p>Those arguing for these schools point out the advantages to students in gaining employment and higher starting salaries. This comes from an unstated belief that the goal of education is to create graduates who meet the economic needs of the country, and that those graduates can thus fulfil their own need for gainful employment. From this perspective there is no problem with inclusion of private companies in educational partnerships.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2014/06/12/prime-minister-doorstop-interview-p-tech-brooklyn">The view of the PM</a> is typical of this notion of education:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What we want to do is ensure that youngsters are getting an education which is relevant to their needs and that we are investing in education and training systems that are going to have appropriate economic pay-offs for our country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What this perspective neglects is that the next generation has needs much broader than gaining employment and being a part of the economic life of the country. For example, they need to leave school with the ability to think critically, to have the broad range of skills for leading a fulfilling and creative life - no matter their circumstances. This view is summed up by Richard Shaull in his <a href="http://www.users.humboldt.edu/jwpowell/edreformFriere_pedagogy.pdf">foreword to educational theorist Paulo Freire’s book</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity, or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The P-TECH schools, with their involvement of the private sector and focus upon vocational training, are likely to be a step backwards in achieving this. It is entirely possible for these schools to succeed in their own terms and achieve high rates of graduate employment, yet still to fail their students.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited a P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early Career High) school in New York last week, hinting it’s a model of education we should consider implementing in Australia. The…Nick Kelly, Research Fellow, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.