Fear not. The enormous brainpower concentrated at the 2020 will surely sort things out.

Good article - no matter what changes to our education system over the years it always seems to fail on that one size fits all characteristic.

Schools are still too focussed on preparing every student for university while other skills and vocations are under-emphasised.

Governments are always loathe to spend more on education and the last exercise into extra funding was for Chaplaincy which has no place in secular schooling and does nothing to enhance education. Money wasted that could go to better targetted courses and more individualised options.

After Year 9 one hopes that the three Rs are taken care of and that more diverse options like trades education in partnership with on the job training and some continued regular schooling could be offerred.

Someone's hobby-horse here, being ridden hard. Academic, impractical.

>>...the child could find their niche, attract an apprentice (the true idea of a teacher), hone their skills then take their productively skillful place within the community. Do our schools play this role today? Do our communities operate this way? No.<<

Well, duh. Our communities do not work that way, ergo, of course the the education system doesn't play that role. Chicken, egg.

Few people can predict with any confidence what education will be "best" for their children a dozen years into the future.

Educators have attempted to take on this role, but have the double disadvantage of i) not having any greater foresight than the parents and ii) seeing the problem from an educator's perspective, i.e. a supply-side view.

This article is from the same stable. However convincing from an academic viewpoint, it is at base an impossible-to-implement piece of naive idealism.

>>This would not be regular employment though; it would be regulated under very restrictive legislation covering wages, working conditions, occupational health and safety, superannuation, etc...<<

All that regulation is needed to ensure that the employer doesn't turn it into slave labour. Unfortunately, most employers I know are already overburdened with red tape, and would not willingly take on more.

>>No tradesperson or employer would be obligated to take on a student and no student would be guaranteed a placement. Acceptance must be willful by both parties...<<

There goes that idea then.

>>To ensure the employer provides valuable training... employers would be intensely surveyed and monitored with the results tabulated<<

Be still, my beating heart. As an employer, the only thing missing from my business is another truckload of idiots "surveying, monitoring and tabulating the results".

Why would any organization - except a government department, perhaps - have the slightest motivation to participate?

I think the author,ie his ideas, has merit! Having been one of the misfits common of the day, choice denied, we still promote the same lack of choice,in schools.
Literacy was included and most valued in my day, it just went on for too long. We have known for a long long time that not all want an education leading to an academic career, some like to work with their hands has been an expression for as long as I can remember.
I volunteered to attend an outing with a bunch of misfits some years ago and like to think that the contact made was beneficial to all. They were good kids but bored shitless having to wait until the age of reason, determined by a bureaucrat, was reached.
Integrating education with trades was once done in the efucation dept, was "trade school", it was maligned by all but those that participated, as I well remember while talking to friends who went to uni.
To people like me what more torture than to have to sit and listen to endless lecturing on a subject of no interest?
Choice in education exists less today than 50yrs ago!
The poster, employer,complaining of more work, is myopic, and perhaps sees labor as his right to have, cheaper the better and gads of choice, lucky we don't allow slavery any more.
I was an employer and found negotiation with employees no problem if unions stayed out of it. I had apprentices, some indentured and some not, the workplace was a "we" situation, not boss and slave.
Some respect goes a long way.
fluff4

Why reduce schooling? How about extending education until the frontal lobe finishes developing? Say about 25? Throw in some national service (note the word "National" deos not mean "Military" although is not exclusive of it.) A couple of years paid work experience and then Uni.

An interesting article, John. My comments mainly relate to the extent and the cause of the problems you identify.

Schools are outmoded in the sense that they still resemble industrial revolution institutions. But there is far more flexibility within schools than you might give credit for – also keep in mind that the media and parents are powerful influences on schools to remain conservatively structured.

Identical curriculum? To a point (although now it will go national!) – one of the main problems is that the curriculum is very crowded, as each successive wave of politicians presses more subjects to be compulsory. So we have the compulsory basics, Bob Carr’s turgid compulsory history….even at the weekend the summit wants compulsory creative arts and the language lobby is always knocking at the door.
Depth and engagement? Sorry, no room! Again, don’t blame the schools.

All this, of course, is combined with recurring top-down state and national testing regimes which are the best designed straitjacket on innovation ever designed.

You do seriously understate the success of vocational training. In a large number of our schools, especially public schools, it has all the elements of integration, seamlessness etc you seek.

Again don’t blame the school for putting their kids’ results up there in lights. The media feeds a public mania for wanting to compare schools using simplistic and meaningless measures. Schools opt out of this at their peril.

Stream curricula by choice after Year 9? This substantially does happen. Kids do take physics and English and even TAFE linked vocational courses. Your information about schools here is badly dated.

I guess my problem with your article is that once again someone has decided to bash schools (albeit nicely) without having a full grasp on both the current reality inside schools and the powerful forces impacting on them from the outside