The purpose of this research is to examine whether, for those who have left full-time education, a low-skill job provides them with a good start to their working lives. It was found that starting out in a low-skill job gives lower payoffs than starting out in a high-skill job. Five years after leaving full-time education, the wage penalty (after conditioning on education and other characteristics) still exists but this scarring effect diminishes over time. However, any job is better than having no job.
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 discussion paper was part of an event jointly funded by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA) and NCVER entitled the National Summit on Data for Quality Improvement in VET held at the Park Royal Hotel, Melbourne Airport, on 9 April 2013. This paper sets out NCVER’s thinking on registered training organisation performance indicators including a discussion of the properties indicators should have and statistical and presentation issues.
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).
The distinction between VET and higher education in Australia is blurring. The purpose of this paper is to examine – through the conduct of a case study of engineering qualifications (AQF6) delivered in Victoria – how education and training providers and students are likely to respond to different fees and funding arrangements under the student entitlement model.
Using data from the 2009 Student Outcomes Survey, this report looks at the pay-offs of completing of a vocational education and training (VET) qualification on a range of outcomes, and identifies the groups for whom completion is particularly important.
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.
Pre-vocational programs, including VET in Schools, are increasingly providing a pathway into traineeships in the same way that pre-apprenticeships are an established route into apprenticeships in the traditional trades. This report uses data from the 2010 Apprentice and Trainee Destination Survey and finds that the benefits of pre-vocational programs are mostly apparent for early school leavers (especially those who leave school after Year 11) and trainees in sales, clerical and administrative, and labouring occupations.
In this 30 minute podcast, Steve Davis talks with Tom Karmel, Erica Smith and Damian Oliver on insights from research into apprenticeships.textInterested in the story behind the numbers, Tom discusses the findings from his work on individual completion rates that show occupation and employers' size matters, with the implication being that the relationship between employer and apprentice is critical. Erica talks about the all too often unspoken expectations of apprentices and employers—the psychological contract. She finds that writing down these expectations at the start of an apprenticeship does help all parties. Damian examines whether pre-apprenticeship programs deliver on their promise of improved retention rates and finds their impact varies by occupation and prior education level. Implications for policy-makers and training providers are drawn out throughout the podcast.
This paper was presented at the joint Skills Australia and Industry Skills Councils 2011 conference, , at the Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne. It addresses the challenge of measurement in workforce development planning, and discusses the role of the various players in labour markets and the information they need to make optimal decisions.
In this paper, the authors identify various educational paths involving school and post-school study and assess the effectivness of these in relation to post-school outcomes at age 25 years. They use the 1995 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth and find that, for males, undertaking an apprenticeship after completing senior secondary and university are attractive paths. For females, the best path is that of university study, even for those with low academic orientation.
This overview provides a brief summary of the report, by Chris Ryan. It describes how Ryan analysed the range of pathways available which offer genuine alternatives to completing secondary school. It finds that for those students who run the risk of dropping out, the best pathway for males is completing an apprenticeship, whereas for females completing Year 12 provides the best outcomes. Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) data are the source of these findings.
Pre-apprenticeship programs have attracted a great degree of interest from employers and training providers as one means of increasing apprentice satisfaction and completion rates, by providing an introduction to the trade. We test this proposition using data from the 2010 Apprentice and Trainee Destination Survey. We find that the impact of pre-apprenticeships varies with occupation and prior education level. Pre-apprenticeships increase the likelihood of completion for apprentices in the construction, food and electro-technology trades but reduce completion rates among those already holding a certificate III or higher qualification and some other categories of apprentices.
This paper was prepared for the Australian Government's National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce, which was created to investigate the extent to which skill shortages might impact on the development of the resources sector. It applies historical apprenticeship commencement rates to population projections to provide an estimate of the number of tradespeople likely to be working in the resources sector between 2010 20 at a detailed level and by region.
Governments are interested in the relative efficiency of institutions, and in addition, information on efficiency can be used by individual institutions to benchmark themselves against their peers. The main factor that was found to affect efficiency, as defined in this paper, was degree of remoteness. Further, institute size is an important factor, with smaller institutes tending to be less efficient. This paper employs a mathematical technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis to examine the efficiency of TAFE institutes.
The NCVER Apprentice and Destination Survey collected, among other things, data on reasons for not completing an apprenticeship or traineeship. This paper finds that poor working conditions or non-sympathetic bosses or workmates have an immediate effect for many. By contrast, the desire to do something different (such as study at university) or better (such as getting a better paid job) remains constant throughout the duration of the training contract.
The traineeship model is currently targeted at a broader group of people compared with the original target group of young unemployed persons as envisaged by the Kirby Enquiry. This report aims to assess the effectiveness of the model for young people, particularly young early school leavers. The findings suggest that traineeships are an important pathway for female early school leavers. However, traineeships are poorly targeted if the target group is disadvantaged young people.
In this interview, Steve Davis talks with Tom Karmel about his report 'Apprenticeships in the downturn'. Apprenticeships have a very long history in Australia, building on the traditions of the medieval guilds. The essence of the apprenticeship is the contract of training--a legal contract between an individual, an employer and a training provider. The defining characteristic is the combination of employment and training. The purpose of this paper is to describe what we know about apprenticeships and traineeships, with a view to assessing the likely impact of the current economic downturn on them.
A history of performance measurement for the vocational education and training (VET) sector, beginning with the creation of the Australian National Training Authority in 1992 and ending with what we know of the current reforms. As well as discussing the various measures, the paper looks at the challenges that are brought up by indicators and makes some suggestions for indicators for the VET system.
This report examines the costs that both employers and apprentices incur for undertaking training in the plumbing and electrical industries. The importance of understanding costs is fundamental. Employers will not take on apprentices if the cost is too high, and prospective apprentices will not undertake an apprenticeship if the future benefits (increased wages) do not outweigh the immediate costs to them. The research found that the apprenticeship model involves a substantial financial commitment from employers, and apprenticeships are more attractive to young people and will remain unattractive to older people, unless the premium paid to qualified tradespeople is substantial.