New report on closing the gap for disadvantaged youth

The Smith Family have released the report Improving the educational outcomes of disadvantaged young Australians: The Learning for Life program, which aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of their national scholarship program.

The program supports 34,000 students and their families a year in 94 communities.

The report highlights that seven out of ten students on the program are completing Year 12, a result that will boost their employment and social participation outcomes.

The Smith Family’s Head of Research and Advocacy, Anne Hampshire, said this compared favourably with six out of ten young Australians from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds nationally completing Year 12 or its equivalent.

“Despite significant investment in a range of initiatives over the years by governments, non-government and philanthropic organisations, too many young Australians are still not achieving educationally,” Hampshire said.

“The potential consequences are a lifetime of disadvantage and its associated impacts, including welfare dependency and social isolation.

“However, the data we’ve gathered over the last four years is demonstrating our approach – intervening early and providing long-term educational support for very disadvantaged young people is working.”

The report highlights that in 2015, more than four-in-five (84 per cent) former Learning for Life students who left the program in Years 10, 11 or 12, were engaged in employment, education or training, a year after leaving the program.

Hampshire said educational attainment was an important predictor of a person’s future employment, income, health and welfare prospects.

“Our research is showing that our highly targeted Learning for Life program is having a very encouraging beneficial impact,” Hampshire said.

“The program has been tested at scale and importantly, it’s also cost-effective, at around just $1,000 per student per annum.

“It is delivering outcomes beneficial to the long-term economic and social wellbeing of young people and for national productivity and social cohesion.”

Hampshire said national and international data shows that Australia’s educational performance is either stagnating or declining overall, with significantly poorer results for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“The problem starts early with gaps in educational achievement, based on students’ background, apparent in the first year of school. These gaps grow as young people move through school, resulting in two in every five young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds not transitioning to employment or further study,” said Hampshire.

“In the context of Australia’s ongoing debate about educational performance, it’s essential that we find scalable and cost-effective solutions that improve the educational attainment of disadvantaged children.

“Not addressing this issue ultimately compromises Australia’s national economic and social participation ambitions.”