ABSTRACT
Why bother – the rationale for consulting young people in schools In the preamble to the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young People (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2008), Ministers of Education from every Australian state and territory wrote:
As signatories to the Melbourne Declaration, Australian Education Ministers seek to achieve the highest possible level of collaboration with the government, Catholic and independent school sectors and across and between all levels of government. Australian Education Ministers also seek to achieve new levels of engagement with all stakeholders in the education of young Australians. (p. 5)
Highlighting ‘all stakeholders’ is intended, here, to remind us that young people in our schools who are rarely counted as such, are the ‘consequential stake holders,’2
for they bear the consequences of the multitude of decisions that are made on their behalf.
