The Victorian youth sector’s message to the 2023 Inquiry into the State Education System is clear: student disengagement is not a personal failing. It is a systemic one — and the system is currently making it worse.
This submission from YACVic, Victoria’s peak advocacy body for young people, draws on direct consultation with fourteen specialist youth sector organisations and presents a ground-level account of what is actually happening for young Victorians in school. The picture is stark. Mental health is deteriorating. Up to 10,000 students disengage from education each year. Current Year 8 and 9 students — many of whom transitioned from primary school during COVID-19 lockdowns — are among the most acutely at risk. And when students are at their most vulnerable, schools too often respond with punishment rather than support, suspending or expelling the very students who most need to be held in relationship with their school community.
One of the submission’s most important reframes is linguistic: the shift from “school refusal” to “school can’t.” The difference matters. Refusal implies a deliberate choice; “school can’t” names the anxiety, sensory overwhelm and accumulated trauma that make turning up genuinely impossible for many young people. That reframe points toward the right response — not attendance mandates, but flexible, student-led learning options, embedded support services, trauma-informed staff, and meaningful youth voice in how schools are designed and run.
For anyone working on student engagement in the middle years, this submission is essential Victorian context. Its 25 recommendations span mental health services, teacher professional development, community partnerships, disability inclusion, and a formal student mental health taskforce — all grounded in the consistent message that young people must be partners in the solutions, not just the subjects of them.