VCE vocational major to offer more practical, hands-on alternative for year 12 students

The new Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) vocational major will be available in Victorian government schools with funding provided to allow small regional schools to offer vocational education and training (VET) classes that were previously not available.

Bendigo Senior Secondary College (BSSC) assistant principal Kylie Hand said the new model was the result of a review over the past several years into the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL), a more practical vocational VCE alternative.

"From there it was decided that they did need to make some changes to try and increase the rigor around VCAL but also to overcome what had become a bit of a negative stigma around the VCAL certificate," Ms Hand said.

"The VCE vocational major or VM is going to be an applied learning program to help prepare students for the workforce but it is now a two-year certificate rather than VCAL which was a single one-year certificate.

"Now it's more closely aligned to the VCE in terms of what you need to complete to successfully qualify."

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The creation of this new pathway has required a rewrite of the curriculum for schools across the state, but Ms Hand said BSSC was fortunate to have piloted some of the VM subjects last year.

"We've had a 12-month lead into that process which has been really good and that also gave us an opportunity to give some feedback around that curriculum as well while it was being drafted," she said.

"But the most significant change that we've needed to make is definitely around the rewriting of the Senior Secondary curriculum, which are the biggest changes that have been made in 20 years.

"Within VM, students will still have access to the full suite of VCE and VET subjects so they can access every subject that a mainstream VCE student can access.

"But within the vocational major, there are some compulsory subjects so students do need to do literacy, numeracy, personal development skills and work related skills as well as a VCE VET subject."

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Ms Hand said subjects within the vocational major are intended to be applied learning subjects so they are typically more hands-on for students and are highly relevant to building the skills and capacity that students need to be able to go into the workforce and be successful.

"A vocational major student, however, can still choose to study VCE English or VCE mathematics if they choose to so they've still got that full suite available to them," she said.

Ms Hand said for students who are perhaps considering not continuing at school because they don't feel they're well suited to test-type assessments, the vocational major will provide a really strong alternative.

"All students should make sure that they're factoring in good course counselling because the VCE is still a really good option for students even if they do want to go into the workforce," she said.

"I think there's been a bit of a belief that if you don't want to go to university, then you should do VCAL or you should do VM, and that's not necessarily the case.

"The VCE will still prepare students really well for the workforce too."

The state government is investing $277.5 million into the senior secondary school pathway reforms with a $120.2 million funding package to ensure schools can cover course materials for students, as well as deliver VET courses in industries linked to workforce shortages like building and construction and electrical and auto engineering.

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