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This year there is an increased number of students from Stawell, Ararat and Marian Colleges travelling outside of their own schools to access Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs provided at another college.

‘VET programs require a high standard of industry qualified trainers and equipment that can not always be accessed within each school’

For the past few years students from Stawell Secondary, Marian and Lake Bolac Colleges have made the journey to travel to Ararat College to access the Building and Construction Skill Centre opened in 2006. This year in addition to those students continuing to travel to Ararat, students from Ararat are travelling to access programs running in Stawell. Many of these students are taking advantage of the Sandlant’s Stawell / Ararat bus service which is now returning to Stawell from Ararat each day and the newly devised VET timetable at Stawell Secondary College which makes it possible for outside students to access four to five periods of class time each Wednesday.

‘VET programs require a high standard of industry qualified trainers and equipment that can not always be accessed within each school’ said Dianne Stewart from the Central Grampians Local Learning and Employment Network. ‘Without combined numbers and shared facilities, many of these programs would not be able to go ahead and our regions senior secondary students would have to travel to either Horsham or Ballarat to access these programs. A small number of students do travel to Horsham to access additional programs such as Agriculture, Multimedia and Hair & Beauty that are currently not offered within the Central Grampians region.’

The Engineering program at Stawell Secondary College has five students from Marian College as well as one from Murtoa College. The school is looking forward to increasing students from other colleges attending programs when the eagerly awaited Engineering and Automotive Skill Centre and Hair & Beauty facilities become available for use in 2009.

While the University of Ballarat’s Jacaranda Restaurant has not hosted VET in schools programs for the past few years, the Hospitality program running this year has proven to be very popular with students from Ararat, Marian, Murtoa and Stawell Secondary colleges combining to take advantage of the excellent facilities.