20 December 2023
A Melville Senior High School graduate and budding software engineer has received WA’s highest education honour.
Isaac Panozzo was awarded the Beazley Medal: VET for being the most outstanding Vocational Education and Training (VET) student in 2023.
Beazley Medal: VET winner Isaac Panozzo.
Isaac also received a VET exhibition award and a VET certificate of excellence in automotive, engineering, and logistics.
In Year 10, Isaac took a robotics TAFE course which sparked his interest in his chosen future career pathway. He hopes to one day become a software engineer and plans to attend university next year to study in this field.
“Ever since then, I haven’t regretted it once,” he said.
“I’m currently working at a manufacturing and engineering company in the robotics field called Nexus. I think that they are the only manufactures of robotics that we have in Perth.”
Isaac said his VET training helped him develop independence and discipline, and he found combining school, TAFE and the workplace provided him with great opportunities.
His mother, Ashleigh, said she was incredibly proud of her son’s achievement.
“I think he’s one of the lucky ones that actually knows what he wants to do,” she said.
“He just he did the robotics course himself, and he just really fell in love with it.”
Isaac said his mother first let him know he had won the prestigious medal, bursting into his room in the morning to wake him up.
“Mum did have quite an audible reaction ... she just came into my room screaming and said, ‘This is important’. It was probably one of the most proud moments of my life, and probably hers of me too, because it is a big deal.”
Isaac also achieved a Certificate II in Integrated Technologies (Pre-vocational) and a Certificate II in Skills for Work and Vocational Pathways.
The Beazley Medal: ATAR was awarded to Methodist Ladies’ College graduate Elena Latchem.