VicSRC Congress and 2024 advocacy platform
The Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC) is the peak body organisation representing school-age children and young people in Victoria. The VicSRC is run by the Student Executive Advisory Committee, comprised of 15 secondary school-aged students who work with the staff and Board to advise the strategic direction of the organisation and advocate for an education system that is student-led, student-driven, and student-focused. To ensure the VicSRC is continuously reflecting the needs and desires of Victorian students, we run an annual Congress event where students from across the state come together to discuss the issues in education that they care the most about.
Whether they come from government, independent schools, home-schooled, or whether they have another kind of relationship to the education system, we welcome secondary school students from across the state to Congress to learn and collaborate directly with students about what they want to see changed or improved in their education.
Figure 1 Breakdown of students education contexts
This year, we set the stage for Congress by asking students to share their big ideas for education reform through a process we called ‘pitching’, where students submitted their recorded or written messages about what they wanted to see discussed the most at Congress.
Through this process, we found that there were four big themes that were coming through the most amongst students, and these themes went on to set the agenda for our discussions on Congress day: mental health and wellbeing, inclusive education, re-defining success at school and finally, boosting investments for students, teachers, and schools.unhelpful, competitive tension between students and also fuelling a fear of failure, which adds to anxiety and stress at school. This narrow definition of success at school also means that many students are left feeling lost or unmotivated when they feel like they are making progress and developing at school, but this isn’t reflected by their teachers or their test score. This is why students want to re-think the definition of success at school by incorporating a more diverse range of assessment methods at school.
Students who come from a diverse range of backgrounds and identities, including students from refugee and migrant backgrounds, and LGBTIQA+ students, feel strongly that school needs to be a safe, inclusive, and supportive place, but some students have noticed an increase in discrimination and other anti-social behaviour since the return to in-person learning. Students said that a new approach was needed to recognise that things have changed since the pandemic and the era of remote learning, and that more needs to be done to send clear messages that this kind of behaviour isn’t acceptable.
Finally, students have noticed that some of the most enjoyable and engaging opportunities at school, like camps, excursions, and other extra-curricular activities, are not being offered as much as they used to be. Students told us that these aren’t ‘nice-to-haves’, but instead they represent an important component of their education which provide valuable opportunities to form positive relationships and experiences at school.
These are just some of the major findings that VicSRC heard from students at this year’s Congress event and will form the basis of VicSRC’s advocacy priorities for the next year.
Some of these findings represent issues which have been around for a long time for students, and this reflects the need to maintain a strong focus on addressing the big issues like the mental health and wellbeing of all students. When it comes to these long-term problems, we want to recognise that the government is doing some incredible work to meet the needs of students, and we look forward to continuing our great work together next year to make sure that students continue to have a seat at the table when dealing with education reform. This will make sure that solutions can be truly informed by the needs and perspectives of students. At the same time, some of these issues have come up for the first time this year, especially around the teacher shortage and the need for a boost in investments in our students, teachers and schools. We can’t wait to work more closely with the government on these issues, build a strong mutual understanding of the issues at hand and find the best ways forward together.
From here, our newly elected 2024 Executive Committee will use the Congress Report as the basis for our updated Advocacy Platform, which will be finalised by early next year. This will set out our next steps in more detail, and we can’t wait to share more details with you all soon. The full report is now available on VicSRCs website! It includes the voice of over 100 students and will form the 2024 Advocacy Platform for VicSRC.