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Vocational education and training (VET) has been seen to be an important
element of school education for some time now. More recently, school-based
apprentices and trainees have been given more prominence as an element
of VET in Schools, partly as a response to skill shortages in a wide
range of areas. The purpose of this short paper is to provide data on
school-based apprentices and trainees to enable a judgement to be made
about how this policy push is unfolding.
Key messages
- The number of school-based apprentices and trainees is
still small compared with all young apprentices and trainees.
- The
number of school-based apprentices and trainees is growing rapidly.
Numbers vary considerably by state, with Queensland and
Victoria
leading the way.
- School-based apprenticeships and traineeships
are concentrated in the retail and hospitality training packages
and are more
likely to
be at certificates I and II level than at certificate III
and above level.
- Completion rates for school-based apprentices
and trainees are a little higher than for their non-school peers
at the
certificates
I and II
level, but lower for certificate III level. The lowest
certificate III completion rates for the school-based apprentices
and
trainees are in
the trades.
- Early attrition is low among school-based apprentices
and trainees, suggesting that drop-out after completing
school
is relatively high.
Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER
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