ASBA

ASBA CASE STUDY Australian School-Based Apprenticeships ASBA stands for Australian School-Based Apprenticeships and involves the employment of a young person who is undertaking a traineeship part time while still going to school or college and enrolled in a program leading to a senior secondary certificate. Students who are 15 years or older get a chance to work during school time and works in the minimum of 8 hours a week whiles 3 hours are for training, which is a Certificate II qualification. The training and employment could be up for a period of 24 months. There is also a Certificate III qualification which has a greater time and work commitment and it could also require further work and study. The Partnership has to be confirmed by the ACT and there are many industries that are connected and some of these are; Student must on their own find an employer with contact with a VET/ASBA Coordinator, which the student also can find assessment from. Sometimes the Coordinator in school will help out depending on what you want to try out. A contract has to be made too with the student’s employer and the student. Students parent have to sign too if under age. For the training and assessment the Registered Training Organisation (RTO) has to play a part too. The student must also make their own timetable with the employer. Students benefit in a lot of different ways from the ASBA program. They’ll receive experience that provides pathway to future training and employment, and trough this they’ll also get paid while working and a great head start in their future careers. We asked an ASBA student if he thought the program was a benefit in form of skills;
 * What is ASBA? **
 * Business
 * IT
 * Sport and recreation
 * Children’s services
 * Community services
 * Government
 * Horticulture.
 * Disadvantages and Benefits; **
 * Ø “Yeah, it’s better cause you learn college side of things and then job sites. So you get practical work and theory as well, so it’s not as bad as just school.”- //ASBA student//

There are also disadvantages in the ASBA program. There seems to be a lot of help for the kids too. If needed the students can get extensions on assignments, and lots of times the students have to drop classes. At Certificate II only about one class but if taken Certificate III they’ll have to drop up to 3 classes, depending on what they are doing. We asked a ASBA student if there were any disadvantages in the program; Teachers are pretty understanding, if falling behind or coming late to classes they’ll help the students if needed. The ASBA program can be offered to ASN students as well. Some students who have home life problems will often disappoint both employer and Coordinator an example is students not attending to work on time or not at all. Students get to choose what if they want to do an ASBA, but they also get to choose what kind of work might be relevant for them and then actually work in school time. The students have personal relevance and choose their own kind of employer from preferences. They’ll be given the chance to find out if there interests in work are. ASBA sets up a great link with outside agencies. Learning School would like to thank all of those who gave their time to help us.
 * Ø “The ASBA work they give to us, some may be hard some may be easy depending on what their searches are and what subjects they choose//.- ASBA student.//
 * Ø “The students do have to help themselves, if they been offered an opportunity it’s up to them to actually.. They are expected to meet us half way.” - //Fiona Chester//.
 * Linked to personalised learning; **
 * // Curriculum entitlement //****// and //****// choice; //**
 * // Strong partnerships beyond the classroom; //**