AAFIE is the home for all educators, researchers, and policy makers with a shared commitment to providing successful educational opportunities and pathways for young people who have experienced barriers to completing school education
AAFIE supports the Flexible and Inclusive Education sector who support young people to learn and succeed! Our work is focused on supporting initiatives that are:
Flexible
They aim to adapt pedagogy and curriculum to suit young people, rather than expecting young people to fit into a standard way of ‘doing school’
Inclusive
They support young people for whom traditional schooling approaches have not worked well, and who have been rejected by, or themselves have rejected mainstream schooling. Most of these young people are disadvantaged or disenfranchised in some way.
About learning
They enable young people to gain recognised secondary school-level credentials, by supporting both learning and wellbeing
Diverse
They come in many shapes and forms. They may be integrated within a school or TAFE; or they may be a ‘stand alone’ annex or independent school
A top choice
Whether students are referred to the program or choose to enrol themselves, these initiatives combine offering a ‘second chance’ with being a ‘top choice’
Did you know?
Every year Flexible and Inclusive education programs support over 70,000 young people across Australia to learn
These programs connect young people with each other and with their community, build on their strengths to develop more skills and knowledge, and improve personal and social wellbeing. The work of Flexible and Inclusive Education can be expected to generate upwards of $16.422 billion in public economic benefits over and above the cost of these programs*
*Te Riele, K. (2014)/ Putting the jigsaw together: Flexible learning programs in Australia. Final report. Melbourne: The Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity and Lifelong Learning
*Thomas, J. & Nicholas, C. (2018). Estimating the economic returns to flexible learning options in Australia – A social return on investment analysis. Townsville: James Cook University.
