Australia needs a giant leap to keep up with educational trends and should bypass the incremental steps along the way.

For example, debates about a leaving age of 15 or 16 for compulsory schooling were irrelevant when some European countries had been at 16 for 3 decades and were planning to switch to 18 or 19.

That is according to Central Queensland University's Dean of Education and Creative Arts, Professor Jim Mienczakowski, who said European countries were already advanced in providing vocational pathways.

Professor Mienczakowski said other OECD nations were enabling students to try a flexible mix of academic and vocational training in their late teens to ensure matriculation was actually taking them somewhere.

The CQU Dean said that Britain was striving for at least half its 18-35s to maintain some ongoing contact with tertiary education to keep their momentum of learning going.

The CQU Dean predicted the development of a breakdown in barriers between vocational and university education in Australia, with the inevitable result that some universities would specialise on the vocational side while others with find their niche in research.

He said Australia needed students who were able to operate in the new economic conditions, where technology skills and lifelong learning patterns would be vital.

"A 15-years leaving age is just not smart enough for the Smart State or the Clever Country," he said.