Tech Schools Koorie STEM Camps

⁠⁠⁠The Department of Education and Training (DET) (Organisation) is responsible for the Victorian Government’s commitment to creating the Education State. As part of this, the Government has invested $128 million to establish 10 Tech Schools across Victoria.

Tech Schools are hosted by a TAFE or university. They are high-tech learning environments, offering innovative education programs to students from secondary school partners within their local government areas. Education programs are linked with identified high growth industry sectors, focus on teaching students in an applied, inquiry-based way, using real world problems. Tech Schools support and enrich the programs and resources that secondary schools cannot provide alone.

The rationale for the Tech School initiative is based on the need for improved science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills to help young people into jobs and keep the Victorian economy growing and competitive.

The Tech Schools Initiative is seeking to increase its focus on priority cohorts, which persistently perform at lower achievement levels in STEM related secondary school subjects than their peers, including Koorie students. Tech Schools contribute to achieving the Education State aims including: reducing the impact of disadvantage on student outcomes; giving students the skills, knowledge and attributes, they need to build healthy, happy and prosperous lives; and supporting students to reach the highest level of achievement in maths, science and critical thinking. Targeted programs for priority cohorts, have been proven to reduce absences from school, lift aspirations and increase positive perceptions of students’ own ability.