For the video and other details, visit the Secretary for a Day page.

Video transcript

Voiceover

Secretary for a Day brings together secondary student leaders as part of Education Week celebrations. It’s a unique opportunity for students to shadow senior officers of the department, and to participate in workshops and forums.

Mark Scott

And we’ve been doing quite a lot of work trying to think through what the future is going to be like for you and for kids younger than you who are coming through the system. What do we need to be doing now to prepare young people as effectively as we can?

Voiceover

The student leaders are encouraged to reflect on and share their experiences, as they consider future directions for learning and education.

Student

Like, say I might be doing trigonometry or something, I want to know how that’s going to be put into practice in the future, how I’m going to use it in my life.

Student

I really liked today you know sharing my opinion and seeing things in the department in such a short timeframe really just puts in perspective like how much work goes into everything you see.

Student

Everything that they do for us behind the scenes to make sure that we’re safe at school.

Man

Do we have to be happy and positive all the time for wellbeing?

Student

People have to be content with themselves through whatever way or means they see wellbeing as.

Voiceover

Their insightful discussions help to inform the work across the department.

Student

For other than maybe a robot teacher there will probably be online courses, I think that’s probably going to takeover in class.

Student

I don’t think teachers could ever be replaced by robots because I think the best educators don’t regurgitate the information which is what robots would do.

Mark

How do we go about encouraging more female students to do more of these STEM subjects?

Student

I think it comes right down to the teachers and their attitudes when they almost ‘sell’ the subjects because we hear teachers and the careers adviser at my school telling us about women in engineering and stuff but it starts at those subject selections because if they’re not selecting those things they don’t get to you know dapple into them and then make those choices to branch out into those fields in later life and university.

Voiceover

During recent forums, the students discussed the impact of artificial intelligence, the role of STEM, anti-bullying strategies, and the importance of wellbeing in schools.

Student

The only thing that isn’t always covered in the kind of videos and the lessons and things that we do learn in school is how do you deal with intervening with covert bullying because it very rarely do those situations arise.

Woman

With those online bullying scenarios, how could you be upstanding?

Student

So, I think the important thing is to teach that like just switching off, getting out of the platform, getting out of the negative situation.

Mark

Has anyone given serious thought to what the workplace will be like in 10 years’ time?

Student

I chose my HSC subjects based on the pre-requisites for that course. Whether or not the job opportunities are still there when I get out of university is going to depend on how quickly that does come about I suppose.

Student

Job availability is the last question in those list of things.

Voiceover

Skills in communication, collaboration and critical thinking, as well as leadership experience are strengthened through the students’ meaningful participation.

Student

The machines are going to be able to takeover our really regular jobs like office filing and coding and Mathematics then shouldn’t we be learning more say psychologically based coping skills, whatnot, problem solving, critical thinking?

Mark

What a good question, that’s exactly what we’re wrestling with at the moment.

Student

Everyone learns differently and everyone has their strengths and even in you know group efforts people have their strengths.

Student

I think that it would be possibly a smart idea to make Maths compulsory.

Voiceover

Importantly, students are empowered to actively participate in their learning and future.

Student

And I think it’s human interaction that really motivates people. We see role models in teachers, we see them believing in us and that’s what makes us want to achieve, that’s what makes us push ourselves out of our comfort zones and try better and try harder.

Everybody

Yay.

End transcript.