It's a common daily routine we see in households around the country - and most of us take for granted. It's what we all do, right?

The sad reality for too many of our young school leavers is that they don't get up and go to work.

Neither does anyone else in their family. Sometimes, no one in their street gets up and goes to work.

You can understand why many come to the conclusion that education and "sticking in at school" are a waste of time.

"It didn't work for me, so why bother building my children up when there's nothing at the end of it?"

To cap off the issues we see with disengagement at school, we have been obsessed for years in training for the sake of training. Too often we have heard the mantra "complete the training course and you will get a job"!

When nothing comes of it, you try another course, and there's still nothing at the end of it. While striving for a place at university is without doubt a purposeful goal to aspire to, for many young people the "building blocks" and path to university are not clear or littered with blockages. Poverty, family situations or even the "wrong" postcode can prevent a young person from achieving that goal. It's not that these young people are "dumb"; it's simply that they have more obstacles in their path than young people from across town.

So what are we doing to help our young people? Having visited schools in some of the toughest areas of the country I have come to a simple conclusion; more Australians need to have a look in their own backyard to see what is really going on and appreciate the challenges our young people are facing.

Under closer inspection, many would be appalled by the simple fact that in this country there is such hopelessness and wretchedness in our communities.

We are facing the risk of losing another generation of young people to the consequences of poverty, generational welfare dependency, crime and unemployment.

The reality is that many of our young people face horrific situations every day. School may actually be the only safe environment they can escape to.

Our teachers witness their stories on a daily basis and have limited tools and resources at hand to really change the situation.

Here in Tasmania the current plight for many is dire. School is not an engaging place, resulting in poor attendance across all years, low year 10 to 12 retention and a general attitude of "it's a waste of time".

We are not taking a radical enough approach to changing the system to address these issues. Rather than tweaks and band aids to the current system, we may need to be bolder.

I want to build a prototype school from scratch to illustrate how effective a school could be.

This school would have the best educators and programs dealing with the most difficult students. It would be free of the red tape that ties the hands of so many great educators.

Fundamental to its success would be quality careers education that permeates through the entire school - all year groups, all subjects and is highly connected to industry.

I have had for the past 15 years the privilege to lead Beacon Foundation, and we have introduced programs into schools to tackle some of the live issues facing young people.

Our Business Blackboard program sees teachers working with industry to co-design and deliver lesson plans where they bring the subject area to life and show how the classroom content is relevant to real life beyond the classroom walls.

This can be done across all subject areas from year 7 onwards. Not only does it make the lesson more interesting and relevant but young people also get exposure to career options.

Likewise ebeacon has been developed in response to an ever-changing world.

This program allows enhancement of the Beacon program online and provides Regional Australia the opportunity to connect to our work in a technological Careers Wonderland.

Our challenge is to mobilise teachers, education departments and the community to work collaboratively to tackle the issue.

It's time to take an audacious approach and give our young people the support to achieve the sense of dignity and self-respect that having a real job brings.

■ Scott Harris is the chief executive of the Beacon Foundation.