COURIER-MAIL: School's Out
[Talking about Uni/career plans at age 17]
Wednesday, October 22, 1986
By
EATON M
As jobs grow harder and harder to find and the Prime
Minister tells us to tighten our belts, the prospect
of finishing school and entering the workforce is a
daunting one to many.
When you look through the employment column of city
newspapers, it's easy to see that the majority of
jobs are for professional people.
For people who have specialised in one specific area
and have a university degree to back up their skills.
But degrees, like jobs, are in many cases becoming
harder and harder to obtain. Each year the number of
school leavers increases, though the number of
university and technical institute places is not
rising at the same rate.
We asked some of this year's grade 12 students about
their thoughts on their future when they leave school
and further study...
Michael Ware, 17, from Brisbane Boys Grammar, says he
couldn't handle having to repeat final year. He wants
to get it right the first time. He reckons on going
close to a score of 970. With that he will study
arts/law.
That sort of course has been in his thinking for the
past two years, dating back to when he chose his
subjects for the final two years of school. He is in
the lucky position of being happy and confident about
doing just what he wants, with the right subjects to
help him along.
While Michael sees faults in the present school
system he is realistic about the situation. "The
system is not perfect but its the only one we have
got, so we have to try to work in it. No one is ever
really confident."
For the 230 grade 12s at Grammar that meant a
concerted effort on the ASAT, with a view to lots of
study for the end of the year.
But maybe a more individualised system would be
better for deciding on tertiary entrance. "Everyone
thinks TE is marks and how hard you work for two
years, but perhaps that is not the best way of
judging whether you would be good in a profession."
Michael suggests personal interviews to sound out
course applicants, although he concedes that such a
process would be very time consuming.