The game-changer that helped these students find their path

At one stage, Aivah Neilson stopped coming to school.

“My attendance was really bad,” she said.

Now she is completing her vocational major (VM) at Lakes Entrance Secondary College with the hopes of becoming a primary school teacher – and it’s thanks to teachers who helped guide her.

“The teachers here are my inspiration,” said Neilson.

Once struggling to get students to finish their Vocational Education and Training (VET) certificates, the small rural school, about 4½ hours from Melbourne, has shifted the dial significantly on its completion rates.

The completion rate for job-focused vocational and technical education streams rose from 88 per cent in 2020 to 100 per cent in 2024. This improvement comes as more students choose the career-oriented VET pathway, with VET enrolment surpassing VCE last year.

Senior school leader Lesley Falk attributes this to a raft of changes, including a focus on career pathways, listening to students, and creating a supporting, safe and encouraging environment. There is also practical help, like purchasing a bus to ferry students back and forth from Gippsland TAFE.

“We’ve always been a small community school … I’ve known them all a long time,” she said of the pupils.

“The teachers here are very dedicated; their goal is to see every student be successful.”

Lakes Entrance Secondary College has been named The Age’s 2025 Schools that Excel inaugural vocational education winner, based on improvements in its completion rates.

The annual series celebrates schools that achieve outstanding advancement in their VCE results, but this year, The Age has created a new category to acknowledge vocational education performance.

Half the Lakes Entrance cohort is enrolled in a VM, with many completing subjects at Gippsland TAFE.

Falk said that the funding for the TAFE bus made a huge difference to completion rates.

“We were looking at what the barriers to VET were in secondary schools, and interestingly enough, one of the biggest barriers … was access. It was a 30-minute ride to TAFE on a very crowded [public] bus.

“Some kids found it very, very intimidating. They are just not used to those crowded spaces.

“If you are fearful of getting on the bus, that barrier is already there. You don’t even get to your first class,” said Falk.

Having the VM is crucial, she said, as “not every student is on an academic track”.

“Getting kids into work to find things they have a passion for is really important.”

The school works closely with the Gippsland East Local Learning and Education Network, which helps with work placements for VET.

It’s what led year 12 student Jacqulyn Shankland, 17, to change her career direction from interior design to medicine.

“I was not really big on medical stuff, but I’ll have a go, and so I did [work experience at Latrobe Regional Hospital], and I just love science. I was really drawn to it,” she said.

Now her goal is to go to Monash University and eventually study to be a general surgeon, and she’s completing a VET course in Allied Health.

“It is quite confronting, because down here, it’s quite small, you know, it’s four hours away from Melbourne,” Shankland said.

“It’ll be a big transition going all the way to Melbourne, where there’s, you know, all these people and all these different backgrounds.”

Falk said other students had gone straight into apprenticeships.

“I’d like to see every student go to year 12, but for some students, it’s not an option. If we can help them into an apprenticeship, that’s a good pathway,” she said.

Originally covering years 7 to 10, the school expanded to VCE and VCAL in 2004, said principal Craig Sutherland.

“You don’t have to really know where you’re going, but you’ve got confidence in the pathway that you’re on,” Sutherland said.

“At some point, those things will become clear. They might not become clearer for many of our students until well after secondary school, but that’s OK as well.

“They are learning that they can have confidence in themselves.”

Brianna Tillack, 18, is hoping to become a vet. She’s completing the VM and a TAFE course in animal care.

“I think some people don’t really want to do the whole uni or ATAR stuff, and I chose to do the VM so I could get out there and do more hands-on, work-related skills,” she said.

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