By Alex Crowe
Cormac Murphy is commuting about five hours from Geelong to Clayton daily this fortnight while his schoolmates spend the summer on the beach.
The St Joseph’s College student is one of about 50 teenagers enrolled in a VCE preparation program run by young volunteers at Monash University.
Cormac Murphy (left), 16, program organiser Nina Zepcan, Taleaha Kops, 16, and Naomi Yang, 17, at Monash University.Credit: Paul Jeffers
“I know I want to go to university. The program is helping me figure out the best way for me to study,” he said.
Beaconhills College student Taleaha Kops hopes the summer program gives her an edge heading into her final school years.
“There’s been a study skills workshop and a job skills workshop that really helped,” she said.
“They told us tips and tricks on cover letters and resumes and interviews … things like that.”
VCE Summer Tutoring is designed for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who don’t typically have access to the same career and study support as kids from posher schools.
The charity does outreach to schools throughout the year, and students are invited to apply to take part.
The majority of participants are either the first in their family to consider tertiary education, culturally or linguistically diverse, from rural and regional areas, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander or diagnosed with a learning challenge.
Many of the young volunteers behind VCE Summer Tutoring benefited from past programs.
“I myself came from a disadvantaged school,” organiser Nina Zepcan said.
She said that being able to demonstrate VCE success was part of what motivated her to volunteer.
“Just to sort of flag my experience that you can perform well in VCE even if you are in a potentially disadvantaged situation.”
A recent University of Melbourne graduate, Zepcan is working in AI and aviation research before beginning grad school.
“It takes a certain type of student to volunteer two weeks of their summer holidays to come and do the prep, but it also takes a certain type of tutor to give that time in kind as well,” she said.
“It makes the experience really great for all parties involved.”
NAPLAN results in 2024 revealed that students from financially underprivileged backgrounds scored 24.3 per cent lower in grammar and punctuation than those from wealthier families.
Recent results from the Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study also show a widening gap in maths and science skills between those from poor and wealthy backgrounds.
VCE Summer Tutoring president Lucas Spaleta said resources like education programs, subject-specific tutoring, academic materials, and mentorship were often unaffordable and inaccessible for families from the program’s target backgrounds.
Spaleta said the organisation addressed that by keeping fees low and providing bursaries to families who can’t afford to pay.
“About 75 per cent of our students report at least one disadvantage factor affecting their education, and often it just means that they don’t have access to resources like academic tutoring,” he said.
“We want to be able to prepare them with a head start and some guidance from our volunteers.”
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