To advocate is to speak or act in support of or in defence of somebody, a community, or a cause.
VicSRC advocates for all Victorian school-aged students, no matter your year level or what type of school you go to. VicSRC’s advocacy work is led by students, including the Student Executive Advisory Committee and VicSRC Ambassadors.
Sometimes our advocacy is based around specific issues, like the Congress priorities. A lot of the advocacy work we do is ensuring that student voices are heard in every aspect of decision-making in education.
We sit on many different Department of Education advisory groups to make sure this happens, including:
We also meet regularly with the Minister for Education so they hear directly from students about the most important issues!
VicSRC surveyed 650 students about their experiences of remote and online learning throughout 2020. We developed several reports and recommendations about how to improve education for all students in the future.
Student involvement in all levels of decision-making is a big focus for VicSRC. Following a campaign by VicSRC, student members are now compulsory on all school councils in Victorian government secondary schools with Year 7 and above.
These resources have more information about students and school governance:
VicSRC regularly writes policy submissions with and for students, and sometimes commissions research about student-focused issues. You can read some of our most recent pieces of work below.
Submission to the NAPLAN review (joint submission with Parents Victoria)
Career Advice Activities in Victorian Schools: A submission to the inquiry by the Economic, Education, Jobs and Skills Committee, Parliament of Victoria (joint submission with Youth Affairs Council Victoria and Youth Disability Advocacy Service)
Initial Teacher Education: A response to the discussion paper ‘Working together to shape teaching education in Victoria’.
Submission to the Inquiry into the approaches to homework in Victorian schools, focusing on the impact on student learning
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