Award for Kangan Batman VET in Schools student
23 July 2004
When she was in primary school, Narelle Mundy knew she wanted to be a nurse. When she was in Year 10, she heard about VET in Schools, and realised she had found a way to get started on her career a lot faster.
Last week, Narelle, 18, won her second award for being an excellent student. First she was awarded a Premiers VCE Award for her community services subjects, with a perfect 50 out of 50 score. Now she has just won the VET in Schools category of the Community Services and Health Industry Training Board awards.
VET stands for Vocational Education and Training. It is a relatively new concept in Victoria, enabling many TAFE courses to be introduced in the last years of school as part of the VCE.
Narelle is full of praise for the Kangan Batman TAFE teacher, Bridget Costelloe, who came to her school, University High, to take a small VET in Schools class in community services. Narelle was the only University High student doing this VET subject and her classmates came from surrounding schools.
"The teaching was excellent. We had total interest in us as people as well as students. My four weeks work placements were perfect, they were related to the work I ultimately want to do in rehabilitation or midwifery. I was surprised when I was announced at the community services and health awards and the first thing I could say was, `It wasn't a solo effort.'
For her part, Ms Costelloe, who is Kangan Batman's coordinator of the Certificate III in Community Services and Health (VETis), said, " I have never met a secondary student so capable of applying theory to the challenges of the workplace. Narelle has known from an early age that she wanted to be a nurse and she saw her certificate as a means of preparing herself for the profession, rather than just school study."
Narelle, who lives in Parkville, is in her first year of a nursing degree at the Australian Catholic University.
"It's a challenging course. Our first year is very theoretical. I am drawing on my academic VCE science subjects of course, but from the VET in Schools study, I am confident about community values of nursing."
For specific information on the VET in Schools community services program, contact Bridget Costelloe on 03 9254 3394 or visit www.kangan.edu.au. Kangan Batman TAFE's course information infoline is 9279 2555.
