Business Council calls for career counsellors in every school to give students advice on jobs, skills shortage

Australia must increase education standards in order to maintain the country’s profitability and productivity, the Business Council of Australia believes, with calls to the major parties to put a career counsellor in every school.

As the Federal election battle is set to intensify from Tuesday, Business Council chief executive Bran Black said industry had growing concerns over falling reading, maths and science standards in schools.

Those concerns stemmed from a lack of “foundational skills” needed for Australia’s economy in the future workforce, and further exacerbate skills shortages in key areas such as housing, energy and the digital economy.

Mr Black said one key measure — a careers counsellor in every secondary school — would give students up-to-date advice on all the opportunities available to them, especially regarding jobs of the future and areas experiencing skills shortages.

“Every student should have access to a careers counsellor, and advice must be modernised, standardised and accessible to help students identify future job opportunities and equip them with knowledge about the skills they might need to have the best shot at success,” Mr Black said.

With students heading back to school in some states from this week, Mr Black said there was also a need for new national targets to put Australians back in the top 10 in the OECD across the key learning areas of reading, maths and science.

Compared to 2006 levels, Australian students fell from sixth position in the OECD in both science and reading to 10th and 12th respectively in 2022. In maths, Australians fell to 16th from eighth spot.

The lobby group will also call for measures to address year 12 retention rates across the country, which are currently at the lowest rate in more than a decade. Last year, only four-fifths of students stayed on to finish the final year of high school.

Mr Black said the current achievement levels for students posed a major concern for the country’s future economic prosperity and jobs pipeline if they weren’t lifted.

“The BCA is calling for new education targets to be set with the goal of returning student results back to the OECD top 10 rankings for each of reading, science and maths,” Mr Black said.

“We can’t be a leader in AI, digital skills and a developer of new technologies in advanced manufacturing if we’re not equipping our students with the basic skills and education required to take on those jobs.”

The Business Council’s announcement comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Friday that two States — Victoria and South Australia — had signed up to the Federal Government’s schools funding agreement, with just Queensland and New South Wales yet to agree.

“Every dollar of funding will go into helping children learn. This will mean more money than ever for public schools – but it’s not a blank cheque,” Mr Albanese told the Press Club on Friday.

“Our new funding is for real reform and it will deliver real results. Because what we are offering every state and territory is new Commonwealth investment in the fundamentals.

“The methods and resources that work, that make the biggest difference.”

Mr Black welcomed the agreement and the focus on early intervention.

“We strongly support the Year 1 phonics screening test, and we think a greater focus on early primary school intervention and support for students who have been identified as needing help is essential,” he said.

“The Federal Government’s recently announced Better and Fairer Schools Agreements will help keep kids in school, with their strong focus on evidenced based teaching, as it’s clear we need a back-to-basics approach to reading, science and maths to give kids the confidence to go the distance with their studies.”