UTSpeaks: To Learn or Earn?

Can forcing students to finish Year 12 promise lives as happy, capable and productive people?

Speaker: Kitty te Riele

Can a 'one size fits all' approach to educating young Australians work? Are our governments' plans to keep students in school for longer a great leap forward, or does it fail to recognise complexity and diversity in the lives of adolescents? Does it miss a vital opportunity to consider more innovative models for education reform?

This public lecture considers the implications of retaining more young people in school. It explores the forms of complexity in young people’s lives that must be recognised in policy and offers insights on how parents, schools, TAFE, employers and governments can make finishing school a lot easier.

Dr Kitty te Riele
Kitty te Riele is a senior UTS lecturer in Education and Associate Director (Research) of the Australian Centre for Child and Youth Culture and Wellbeing. Her research is concerned with policy and practice for disadvantaged young people, with a special focus on early school leavers. She is interested in both mainstream and alternative educational initiatives aimed at improving opportunities for disadvantaged youth, and in related education and youth policy. She was editor for Making Schools Different: Alternative approaches to educating young people recently published by Sage, London.

Introduced by
Jack Dusseldorp OAM, Chair of Dusseldorp Skills Forum and President, WorldSkills International

UTSPEAKS: is a free public lecture series presented by UTS experts discussing a range of important issues confronting contemporary Australia.