So we are using tradies as the example of why government schools are better for practical preparation...
You realise that areas such as law, finance, accounting, engineering, and medicine among a whole lot of others require significant theory based educations before you are able to even consider operating in those fields?
Furthermore many government schools offer nothing really different in terms of specific vocation based training when compared to private schools unless you go to one of these new tech schools that the government offers. Even then you still have to complete a significant amount of off site training which would not be provided by the school in order to learn. People I know went to one of the long standing schools like that and the only benefit they obtained was they were allowed to work practically one day a week over the year. Yet they still had to complete the same requirements over the time as someone who wasn't doing it as part of their school course. Above this practically based university programs such as nursing, teaching and medicine also require significant compulsory job based time to be spent as a part of the course much like carpentry does. There are a number of reasons however why job experience cannot be ascertained in high school in those industries and seeming schools like Scotch College and Xavier have multiple students who end up practicing in these areas it defeats the purpose of offering job based training.
As a side note, some of the best vet program schools (the vocational vce units) which offer on the job type training programs are run by private schools. A couple of the top girls schools have outstanding programs in multiple disciplines and I went to a fee school which offered what was considered to be the best food and hospitality program in the state.
The claim that government schools offer better practical experiences when com[pared to other school types such as private schools is a myth. The facts clearly demonstrate why private schools will offer less practical based courses than government schools. Furthermore even then there is significant evidence to demonstrate the quality of vocational units at non government schools is a higher standard when offered.
