The Galilee Day Program: Alternative education and training strategies for young people in substitute care

Comprehensive research undertaken in 1995 and 1997 clearly establishes the educational needs of at-risk young people. Research by Webber and Hayduk (Leaving School Early) and Brooks et al (NYARS report Under-age School Leaving) establishes indicators contributing to under-age school leaving which are discussed in relation to the responsibility of schools in meeting the needs of at-risk students. Without revisiting the tenets of the deschooling movement which have been canvassed in detail in the pages of many books and education journals, the discussion explores the validity of alternative models to mainstream schooling. The paper assumes a certain inability of schooling to meet the needs of at-risk student; indeed it could be argued that the purpose of schooling generates and selects at-risk students. In a schooling culture which propagates the ideology of integration, the paper suggests the validity of an alternative and exclusion-based model of education. One such model has been established in 1997 in the Australian Capital Territory and this alternative education program is evaluated.