What can be done to strengthen the outcomes of VET in Schools for students?
At age 15, background characteristics, like strong academic performance and a high sense of ability, overwhelmingly influence levels of school engagement, not a school’s attributes.
Apprentices aren't what they used to be, or are they?
Young people's intentions to pursue post-school study established in secondary school.
Parental influence plays a significant role in their children's educational aspirations.
Educational aspirations have a large impact on educational outcomes.
Socioeconomic status is still a major influence on school performance.
This report provides data to monitor key performance and program measures for VET among school-aged youth in Australia.
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.
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 research shows that older Australians use computers and the internet less than younger Australians. Therefore, in the short term, information and services aimed at older Australians will need to be provided in additional ways.
This publication is a collection of summaries of research projects published by NCVER in 2012.
The focus of this paper is on the factors, other than access, that influence the decision for Indigenous Australians to participate in education.
Do pre-apprenticeships help individuals to obtain an apprenticeship?
This report compares the outcomes for young people who complete certificate I or certificate II qualifications with the outcomes for similar individuals who are not participating in post-school education and training, using data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth.
Lorraine Dearden talks in this podcast about work she has co-authored on widening participation in higher education in the United Kingdom (UK).
An increasing and important requirement of any funded research program is the ability to demonstrate that it is relevant and useful to public policy and to practitioners. This study takes the framework NCVER developed for measuring research impact to assess the outcomes from research and activities funded under the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth Research Innovation and Expansion Fund. It finds that the purpose of the fund, to start a ripple effect in the use of the LSAY data, was met, and that the research undertaken had strong resonances in the media as well as proving useful to government officials and practitioners working in the area of youth transitions.
This report investigates the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) for its coverage of wellbeing questions. It is an area of considerable interest to policy-makers, and having a valid set of wellbeing questions in LSAY will enhance the capacity to investigate the links between wellbeing and other domains of interest for young people. The analysis finds three robust factors, which can be termed social wellbeing, material wellbeing and career. The three factors do not cover all the dimensions of wellbeing discussed in the literature, particularly the psychological aspects. Suggestions are made for enhancing the current list of wellbeing questions in LSAY.
To provide insights into how young people may fare in the current economic downturn, this study examines the experience of youth in a previous downturn.
This conference paper was presented to the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training, 13–16 May 2012, in Shanghai. It argues that there are two key factors behind Australia's good record of employment for young people: high levels of post-school education with the consequence that there is not a large cohort of people in their mid-to-late teens flooding on to the labour market; and a flexible education system which gives individuals multiple choices.