Looking back at TRAC

TRAC [training for retailing and commerce] was a pioneering program of vocational learning for school students in Years 11 and 12 centred around structured and assessed work placements. It was designed and developed by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum to bridge the almost complete disconnect, at the time, between the skills students acquired through school and the skills they would need to enter the labour market. By every measure - and there were careful evaluations both by the Forum and by external researchers - TRAC more than achieved its aims. It demonstrated, on a national scale, that upper secondary schools can and should prepare students for work in ways that are rigorous and accredited. This ‘look back’ is not to re-assess the TRAC program itself, although its history and operation are described in some detail. The purpose, rather, is to search TRAC’s development, implementation, and eventual devolution for lessons that might be learned - underlying principles that might exist - which could usefully be applied to other of the Forum’s ventures and ambitions. The image of an iceberg, although a cliche, does illustrate the idea: it is to look for the essential, but submerged, foundations which enabled TRAC, the visible surface, to achieve the successes it did.

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