At the end of each school year, we see the same ritual play out. Year 12 results are released and newspapers publish league tables, ranking schools by their exam results.
What you almost never see on the front page is a student who finished a vocational program and walked straight into skilled work.
This doesn’t make sense. There is constant commentary from governments and employers that the country needs more skilled workers in construction, nursing, aged care, early childhood, teaching and trades.
Yet we still treat the pathways that produce these workers as the option you take when the “real” one doesn’t work out.
Why is this? And how can we fix it?
What is a vocational pathway?
A vocational pathway means developing workplace-specific skills and qualifications for a particular occupation or industry. Students can begin vocational learning while still at school, including as part of a senior secondary certificate or through a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship. After school, they might continue through TAFE, another registered training provider, an apprenticeship, a traineeship or a private registered college.
This is different from a “higher education”, where the focus is on giving you thinking tools to perform in a role (although unis can also focus on practical skills).
You might do vocational training to be a hairdresser, chef, electrician or dental hygienist, for example.
Vocational pathways can start before students leave school. In 2024, more than 266,000 Australian school students undertook vocational training as part of their senior secondary certificate. This was about 26% of Year 12 completers.
You can also start your vocational training – with no prior experience – after school.
Read more:
Help! I’m almost finished school but don’t know what I want to do next
A paradox decades in the making
For at least 40 years, governments of every stripe have warned about skills shortages. As of 2025, 29% of occupations are in shortage. This involves almost 50% of trade roles and about 40% of professional occupations. But when it comes to life after Year 12, the focus keeps flowing toward universities and the ATAR.
Students can absorb the message early. From the first years of high school, the academic route is presented as the aspiration and vocational study as the fallback.
This is despite the strong opportunities many vocational pathways can provide. In 2024, 95.4% of trade apprentices were employed after completing their apprenticeship or traineeship. Some trade occupations also pay above the all-occupation median. For example, electricians have median full-time earnings of about A$2,191 a week, well above median weekly full-time earnings of about $1,852.
A current Victorian parliamentary inquiry has heard evidence from students of the “stigma” around taking a vocational pathway in the senior years of school, noting it’s not seen as the “smart way”.
A 2024 federal parliamentary inquiry similarly found many students still see vocational pathways as a “last resort” for those who do not get the marks for university.
It also heard many schools are institutionally structured to channel students toward university. This can include limited provision of vocational options, inadequate information about non-university career pathways, and a lack of trained career counsellors and educators with industry knowledge.
It also noted how high ATAR scores are used to rank schools, while schools are “rarely if ever” ranked by the number of students who succeed through VET pathways.
Vocational learning seen as ‘residual’ by school leaders
This doesn’t mean students lack interest in vocational learning. It means they are often making choices in a system where university entrance, ATAR results and academic achievement remain the most visible signs of “school success”. Meanwhile, vocational achievement is less publicly recognised.
In our research on vocational and applied learning (which includes workplace learning, projects and community activities), we found school systems often make vocational learning less visible and less secure.
In a project with school leaders across 23 Victorian high schools, applied learning was repeatedly described as “additional”, “extra” or “residual” work. Leaders pointed to timetabling pressures, staffing instability and school systems that still privilege academic performance.
When vocational learning is treated as peripheral inside schools, students are more likely to view their pathway is also peripheral.
The teachers no one talks about
Students aren’t the only ones affected.
Teachers in applied and vocational settings do some of the most demanding work in schools. They connect classroom learning to what’s happening in industry, build partnerships with employers, and teach some of the most diverse groups of students.
That work takes real expertise. Yet our research also found it is routinely treated as a “lesser” role in the profession. This judgement shows up in concrete ways in timetabling, funding, and in who gets resourced and recognised.
Why marketing won’t fix it
Three structural changes can help this situation.
1. Change how we measure and report success. If a school’s public worth is summarised by its top ATARs, everything else is invisible. Recognising and reporting achievement in vocational pathways would begin to shift what counts.
2. Stop treating vocational and academic pathways as separate worlds. Schooling, vocational education and higher education are still too often governed, funded, and discussed through different systems. This reinforces the idea that they are different kinds of learning – with different levels of importance – rather than connected parts of a broader education and training system.
3. Build more useful evidence. Government-funded bodies such as the Australian Education Research Organisation give schools research-based advice. Applied and vocational pathways need the same attention, so schools are not left to build programs on goodwill alone. They need clearer evidence about what works, how to implement it, and how to recognise successful outcomes beyond ATAR results.
Signs of change
It isn’t all bleak. For example, in Victoria, students can now do a vocational major as part of the Victorian Certificate of Education. This means there is a clear place within the schooling system and recognition of distinct contributions they make to schools.
Educators and young people already know the value of this learning, they live it. The shift still to come is among policymakers, the media and the public.
The next time the ATAR league tables appear, it is worth asking who they leave out, and what we would have to change to put them back in.
