Education after year 10: The role of the secondary school

Abstract

In recent times public reports and Government policy statements in Australia have been affirming as a self-evident good that everyone should continue in full-time schooling until the end of Year 12. We are, of course, only following the example of such leading industrial nations as the United States and Japan. In the former, the percentage of an age group completing high school rose from around 50 per cent in 1940 to about 85 per cent by the late 1970s. The proportion of young people going to college also grew dramatically. It went from around 16 per cent in 1940 to 45 per cent in 1968, although it has been fairly stable since then. Even the French education system has not been immune to this trend. The Minister for Education recently announced plans to diversify and make more flexible the curriculum of the lycees with the aim of doubling their enrolment over the next fifteen years. This means that the graduation rate for an age group will increase to 80 per cent. The Blackburn report (1985) in Victoria has proposed that by 1995 participation in Year 12 should expand from the present 40 or so per cent of an age group to 70 per cent. It is anticipated that enrolments in tertiary institutions will double during this period.