Prime Minister Julia Gillard spent part of the third full day of the election campaign in Richmond in Sydney’s west, to announce the national trade cadetship scheme to combat Australia’s skills shortage.
Under the initiative, students from years 9 to 12 would be offered the cadetship as an option under the national curriculum and would utilise the resources of the trade training centres being introduced to secondary schools around Australia.
Two streams of the national trade cadetship would be available including one stream which lays the foundation for further training and a second which focuses on achieving an apprenticeship in a specific area or trade.
“Currently around 220,000 students do study vocational education and training at school,” the Prime Minister said.
“That’s around 41 per cent of kids going into senior secondary certificates.”
This is an important policy, which addresses the skills shortages but also the educational needs of those teenagers left out by the secondary education’s emphasis on preparing for a university degree. So, which of the following questions did the assembled media pack ask when they got some q-and-a time with the Prime Minister?
A. Prime Minister, will the cadetship scheme be backed up with an increase in apprenticeship opportunities? For example will you offer incentives to large companies to recommence apprentice intakes that were common up until the 1990s?
B. Are community cabinets a waste of taxpayer dollars?
C. Are you running an overly staged managed campaign? When will you get out on the streets and shopping centres?
D. I’m wondering how you’re standing up under the campaign. Are you getting enough sleep?
If you guessed B. C. and D., you are correct.