THE Victorian government has denied funding cuts in vocational training at schools will prompt more students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds to drop out.
A report into school retention rates has found less than two-thirds of students in the state's lower socio-economic areas finish Year 12, compared with 80 per cent in wealthier areas.
Auditor-General Des Pearson has warned against a cut of $12.3 million in annual funding for the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) program, which has a disproportionately high enrolment of students from low socio-economic backgrounds.
"There is a risk that VCAL course offerings will become restricted in the future," he said in a report tabled to parliament on Wednesday.
He said the decision to pull VCAL's co-ordination funding was ill-informed and not based on evidence.
"Important commissioned research was ignored, and stakeholders, including schools, were not consulted about the likely impact of the changes," he said.
"DEECD (the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) did not have sufficient evidence to assess the impact of funding changes on schools' ability to meet the growing demand for VCAL, and, in turn, on the impact that this would have on future completion rates."
Education Minister Martin Dixon said more students were undertaking VCAL than ever before, which should boost retention rates.
"We are not aware of any schools that have actually discontinued VCAL," he told reporters.
"The fact that we've got more students in more schools undertaking VCAL, I think that will help with retention rates in the coming years."
He said rather than rely solely on advice from his department, he preferred to consult schools directly.
"The advice that ... we based our decision on was advice that we received from schools from numerous visits and also talking to stakeholders."
Almost 14,000 students were studying subjects for VCAL - the vocational form of the school leaver's certificate - last year, with enrolments having increased by about 60 per cent since 2006.
In 2010, almost nine out of 10 of intermediate or senior VCAL students got a job or went into further training or education.
Opposition education spokesman James Merlino said parents of children moving into Year 11 next year were going to information nights and being told nothing about VCAL.
"Education in Victoria is going backwards," he told reporters.
"The very students that are most at risk of dropping out of school are the very students that this government is targeting with their savage budget cuts."
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