2025 Student Outcomes Survey: Privacy collection notice
About the survey
Why the Student Outcomes Survey is conducted
The purpose of the Student Outcomes Survey is to gather information to improve the social and economic outcomes of students who undertake vocational education and training (VET), help students make informed training decisions, and assist training providers and governments to improve the quality and relevance of the training.
Who funds, conducts and manages the Student Outcomes Survey
The survey is funded by the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.
NCVER is contracted to manage the survey and analyse and publish the survey results. NCVER engages The Social Research Centre (SRC) to conduct the online survey and telephone interviews.
Survey participation
Although participating in the survey is voluntary, your contribution to improving the relevance and quality of VET is greatly valued. It is also important that the results represent all students, even if you didn’t complete your training, your training was short, or if you did it through your workplace.
I don't want to participate in the 2025 survey
To opt out of the 2025 Student Outcomes Survey and not receive future communications about it, please telephone the survey helpline on 1800 413 992 (free call within Australia) or email soshelpdesk@srcentre.com.au.
The information collected
What information is collected?
Your name and contact details are provided to SRC via a secure file exchange portal by government departments responsible for training, by the Office of the Student Identifiers Registrar (OSIR) or by NCVER. This personal information may include your:
- name
- contact details
- age
- date of birth
- gender
- Indigenous status
- training program and training provider details.
Other information collected through the survey relates to your satisfaction with the training, additional study and work situation.
Responses to the survey will be linked with personal and training data provided by your training provider. This may include sensitive information from your enrolment form. This allows the questionnaire to be shortened as we do not need to ask specific details about you or your training.
Where your information is held
For the duration of the data collection, SRC stores all personal information and survey responses on secure servers located within Australia.
After SRC provides your information to NCVER, NCVER stores the data within Australia with appropriate levels of security.
Collection and use of your personal information
Your personal information is collected for the purpose of administering the Student Outcomes Survey and related purposes, including:
- To produce statistics and research relating to education. This may involve combining your information with other sources of data to help policy makers and researchers gain a better understanding of VET sector performance, support critical policy and other decision making, and shed light on evolving VET sector priorities. This is known as data integration.
- To understand how the VET market operates.
- To invite you to participate in a survey.
Disclosure of your personal information and the collected data
Some personal information (such as your name, email address and phone number) is only used by SRC for administering the survey. This may be disclosed to a small number of external service providers SRC works with to administer the Student Outcomes Survey. Companies providing printing, email and messaging services will be provided with your contact information for the sole purpose of administering the survey.
On completion of the survey fieldwork, SRC does not give your name or contact details to NCVER, only a data set of all the information collected. Please note that NCVER can identify you from the data set collected, notwithstanding that your name and contact details will not be provided to NCVER by SRC. SRC and all companies contracted by SRC comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). SRC and these companies destroy all records of your name and contact details at the conclusion of the survey.
Other personal information such as demographic information (including gender and age group) as well as course information is also used to analyse and interpret the survey data.
If we disclose personal information, we do so only as permitted by the Privacy Act and the National VET Data Policy.
We may also disclose your personal information where:
- you have agreed
- you would reasonably expect, or have been told, that we may disclose information in a particular circumstance or to a particular person or organisation
- it is required or authorised by law.
Further to this, the National VET Data Policy authorises us to disclose personal information for:
- administering VET, including program administration, regulation, monitoring and evaluation
- facilitating statistics and research relating to education, including surveys and data linkage
- understanding how the VET market operates, for policy, workforce planning and consumer information.
Your personal information and other collected data are disclosed for the above purposes to the following recipients and in the following manner.
- NCVER publishes the data at the aggregate level and discloses aggregate, de-identified or identified unit record data to Commonwealth and state/territory government education and training departments.
- Commonwealth and state/territory government education and training departments may publish the data at the aggregate level, and the Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations also publishes aggregate data on their Your Career website for access by students, the public and training providers.
- NCVER may provide summary reports to training providers that show aggregated responses, and training providers may publish this information on their own websites.
- De-identified unit record files may be provided to training providers and researchers requesting data for purposes related to facilitating research and statistics on education. Such requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis and are only provided under strict terms and conditions.
Protection and management of your information
The Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, NCVER, SRC, and OSIR manage personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
Any person in the European Union (EU) who participates in this survey is considered to have opted in by their own choice. They should be aware that while NCVER fully complies with the Australian Privacy Act, including the Australian Privacy Principles, and the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, which have similar requirements to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), NCVER may not at this time, comply with all GDPR requirements.
For more information on how your personal information is handled, including how to seek access to, or correction of, your personal information and how to make a complaint about a breach of your privacy, please refer to the relevant Privacy Policies. Full details of each are displayed on the respective websites:
The Australian Government Department of Employment and Workplace Relation's privacy policy
Further information
Who to contact
For general queries about the survey, please contact the Student Outcomes Survey Helpline on 1800 413 992 (free call within Australia) or email soshelpdesk@srcentre.com.au.
This includes queries or complaints concerning your personal information, or if you wish to request access to or correction of your personal information. Correction of your personal information can only be made while the survey is being conducted and for the purpose of administering the survey as records of your name and contact details are destroyed once the survey is concluded.