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Tapping Into Retired Tradespeople To Mentor In Classroom - Addressing Skills Shortage

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Media Statement - 19th November 2007

A Rudd Labor Government – as part of its Education Revolution – will set up a pilot mentoring program to help recently retired professionals and tradespeople pass on their skills and knowledge to young Australians.

Federal Labor’s Mentors for our Students will provide $5 million over four years to pilot a volunteer mentoring program in 25 communities around Australia. The pilot will aim to recruit and train up to 750 mentors. Australia is facing a shortage of more than 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years – and a deficit of 240,000 workers by 2016.

This is part of Federal Labor’s plan to fix Australia’s skills crisis by tapping into the valuable knowledge of older Australians. It is also about encouraging young people to pursue a career in the trades.

Australia has an ageing workforce and increasing number of retired professionals with the capacity and the desire to give something back.

A Rudd Labor Government will close the skills gap – the gap between the demand for and supply of skilled workers. Under Federal Labor’s Mentors for our Students pilot, suitable retirees will receive an appropriate level of training - which will be tailored to their educational needs – to prepare them to mentor and inspire younger people.

Funding will be available to establish volunteer programs for relevant qualified local retirees. Grant funding of up to $50,000 will be available on an application basis to the existing Local Community Partnership network that facilitates career and transition services for the Department of Education, Science and Training.

Under the pilot, trained mentors will visit secondary schools and TAFE working with students in trade workshops, helping them understand where their trade or subject can take them, and providing advice based on the many years of on the job experience they have had. Participants will be subject to rigorous working with children checks.

The Mentors for our Students pilot will complement, Federal Labor’s plan to Skill Australia by:

  • Funding an additional 450,000 skilled training places over the next four years - 200,000 more than the Howard Government;
  • Ensuring that 90 per cent of these places lead to a higher qualification than the Howard Government’s proposed new training places; and
  • Placing industry demand at the heart of the skills training system – so that training providers equip Australians with the skills that industry needs.

In addition, Federal Labor’s $2.5 billion Trades Training Centres plan is aimed at 1 million students in Years 9 to 12 in Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools.

Federal Labor’s plan provides secondary schools with between $500,000 and $1.5 million to build or upgrade trades training facilities and will also invest $84 million to ensure all trades training students get one day a week of on the job training for 20 weeks a year.