This research analysed the learning journeys and training and employment outcomes of students who undertake nationally recognised foundation skills programs.
This report examines the factors that influence early school leavers to re-engage with education, particularly through VET.
This report investigates skill underutilisation in Australian workers by examining patterns of over-skilling and over-qualification and the pathways of people into jobs where they are over-skilled.
Assessing annual training participation targets requires accurate information but when the tool for measuring participation rates includes information that is updated every five years, how accurate are the estimations in the intervening years?
Apprentices aren't what they used to be, or are they?
Parental influence plays a significant role in their children's educational aspirations.
The authors of this paper explore whether low socioeconomic status (SES) students benefit to a greater or lesser extent from attending high-quality schools when compared with their more advantaged peers.
This paper was written to encourage policy-makers to think about how to measure socioeconomic status (SES). It also provides some data on socioeconomic status and tertiary education participation and speculates about the likely impact of an expansion in higher education on those from a low socioeconomic background.
This report uses Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) data to look at the impact of schools on a student’s tertiary entrance rank (TER) and the probability of them going to university (controlling for TER).
This report investigates attrition in the trades by comparing the rate at which tradespeople leave their occupation with that of professionals. It also determines whether attrition is influenced by economic conditions, and if a trade can provide a good start to a career in the professions. The report concludes that attrition in the trades is no higher than in the professions; the rate of leaving particular occupations may vary, but overall the results between the two are very similar. The economic climate also makes little difference to the attrition rate.
This paper investigates what might be the vocational equivalent to completing senior secondary school. Three dimensions are considered: volume of learning, educational complexity and labour market, and other outcomes at age 25 (the last based on the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth). The report finds that no vocational pathway can be considered to be equivalent to Year 12 in a literal sense; vocational pathways form an alternative to Year 12 but are not equivalent.
In this report the authors seek to answer the question of whether combining school and work is detrimental or beneficial to a student's school educational performance and labour market outcomes. They find that young people who combine school and work are distributed right across the school population. Results show that individuals can combine school and work with minimal impact on their study if the hours are modest and those working longer hours show a stronger orientation towards work than study. The authors used data from the 2003 cohort (Y03) of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth.