Increasing proportions of vocational education and training (VET) graduates are studying to gain extra skills for their current job or in response to job requirements.
Released by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Student outcomes 2012 provides an annual national score card on Australia’s training system. Each year students are asked what they’re doing six months after studying, why they undertook training, how satisfied they were, and what benefits they got from training.
The results show that 83% of VET graduates undertook their training for job-related reasons, with 19.9% reporting they undertook training to gain extra skills for their current job. This has steadily grown from 15.3% in 2006.
The proportion of graduates who undertook training as a requirement of their job rose to 18.2%, up from 16.4% in 2011.
Ms Sandra Pattison, General Manager, Statistics, NCVER, said these findings are largely consistent with expectations and in response to changing labour market conditions.
“When people feel uncertain about economic conditions and the labour market, they tend to look to study to boost their skills to get a job or remain competitive.”
Overall, the employment of VET graduates remained stable this year, with 77.8% in work after finishing their studies. Measures of satisfaction with training remained high, with 89.1% satisfied with the overall quality of training.
All data in Student outcomes 2012 is derived from the Student Outcomes Survey which is conducted in the first half of each year on behalf of the Australian, state and territory governments.
Copies of the Student outcomes 2012 are available from www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2572.html. For further information on the survey visit www.ncver.edu.au/sos/faq.html
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