Improving institutional arrangements : increasing the effectiveness of pathways through upper secondary education

![CDATA[This paper provides an overview of practices and policies currently employed in Australian secondary schools aimed at raising retention rates and improving young people's transitions from school to work or further study. A wide range of institutional arrangements have emerged over the past three decades. Each jurisdiction has developed senior-secondary programs with distinctive features. This is to be expected: not only are the states and territories quite different from each other demographically, they also differ in terms of historically-conditioned mind-sets that influence what policy-makers are likely to suggest, how the public might react to them, and whether the suggested reforms will be acceptable to teachers and educational leaders. Across the jurisdictions, arrangements governing the senior secondary stage vary considerably in terms of the subjects offered, the levels of complexity of these subjects, how requirements for graduation are defined, and how student achievements are assessed. The first section of this paper provides a brief overview of some of the differences in institutional arrangements across the jurisdictions and how these have evolved over time. Over time there appears to have been a degree of convergence. Institutional arrangements have evolved to the point where a common framework of positive practices for supporting increased retention now exists across all jurisdictions. However, since high school completion rates have not increased substantially over the past two decades, it may be necessary for schools and systems to consider institutional reforms that go beyond what has been attempted hitherto. Case studies pointing in this direction are provided in the final section.]]