Work Pathways

Project scope

The aim of this project was to create an interactive Australian vocational job pathways tool by mapping the Year 9 to 12 curriculum to two pilot Skills Organisation industry areas, the Human Services Care and Mining sectors. These industry areas have been chosen to align the project to the new Skills Organisations and ensure the resulting tool is valued by industry in those areas.

The project will be launched with a working title of “Work Pathways”. The final brand name for the project and the pathways tool will be informed by industry views.

This project was scoped in response to recommendation 7.2 of the Strengthening Skills – Expert Review of Australia’s Vocational Education and Training System (Joyce Review) using the New Zealand Vocational Pathways model as a reference point.

The Australian version, Work Pathways, will be adapted or contextualised to deliver a model that is relevant to the Australian context.

The project  involved:

• stakeholder consultations with relevant business and industry peak organisations, and state and territory governments to seek their views. We look to gain a better understanding of industry’s skills and knowledge expectations of school leavers including the subjects they regard as most relevant to occupations within their industry mapping Australian secondary school subjects (Years 9 to 12) to industry expectations to show pathways in the two focus industry areas.

• developing an interactive online tool to assist students, teachers, and career practitioners to understand the link between secondary subjects and the skills and knowledge gained and work pathways in the two focus industry areas. 

• the online tool leveraging the existing Stride4 Job Profiler and must be published on an Australian Government website.

The Work Pathway Pilot is now closed with the final report delivered to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.