COAG today agreed to establish a Compact with Young Australians.
This will ensure that as we recover from the global recession, young Australians have the skills required to realise their potential.
Under the terms of the Compact agreed today, every Australian under the age of 25 will have a guaranteed education or training place.
This education and training guarantee will ensure anyone under the age of 25, including those who lose their job, will be able to take part in further education or training.
The Compact is based upon three core principles:
* Anyone under the age of 17 must be earning or learning, you must be in full time school, training or work;
* If you are under the age of 20 and are not working, you will be provided with a training place with the first priority - a year 12 or equivalent VET qualification;
* If you are under the age of 25 and you are not working you are guaranteed a training place to ensure you have the skills needed to be part of the recovery.
The Government anticipates that the Compact with Young Australians will provide up to 135,000 young people with higher qualifications.
We must not make the mistakes of the past and allow the young people who lose their job today become the long term unemployed of tomorrow.
In a global recession young people always feature heavily in the ranks of retrenched and laid off workers.
This Compact is to ensure that young Australians who lose their job in this recession are trained to be the tradespeople and professionals of the recovery.
We cannot allow the skills and training needed by a modern economy to skip a generation because of a global recession.
Strengthening conditions for welfare payments
To support this new Compact the Australian Government will strengthen the conditions unemployed young people must meet to receive Youth Allowance.
Anyone under the age of 20 without a year 12 or equivalent qualification must be in education or training in order to receive youth allowance.
This same condition must be met if the parents of young people in the same circumstances wish to receive Family Tax Benefit Part A.
If young people or their parents want to receive government benefits the quid pro quo is that the young person is working or earning a year 12 equivalent qualification.
Building on the Education Revolution
The Compact with Young Australians agreed today will form part of the Rudd Government's Jobs and Training Compact with all Australians.
Today's Compact has allowed COAG to accelerate by five years the COAG year 12 attainment goal.
COAG now aims to lift the national year 12 attainment level to 90 per cent by 2015.
The Commonwealth agreed to provide reward payments of up to $100 million for the achievement of improved performance against this goal.
The measures announced today build on the Government's Education Revolution which includes a $2 billion commitment to provide 711,000 additional vocational education and training places.
They build on historic and dramatic increases in investments in our schools - public and private - to lift the quality of education for young Australians.
As a result of these investments, a total of $62.1 billion will flow to schools from 2009-2012.
This represents an 85 per cent increase, or getting close to double the $33.5 billion invested by the previous Government in the last four years on recurrent funding and infrastructure.
Today's Compact puts education and training front and centre to ensure Australia's future productivity.