Using the 1995 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, this project examines how long it takes for young people to move from education to work, and identifies factors that distinguish people who are able to move quickly into employment from those who take many months to find work.
This monograph is the culmination of a three-year research program undertaken by the University of South Australia's Centre for Work+Life. It considers the barriers, support and benefit of vocational education and training (VET) for workers in the low-paid occupations (that is, those earning around $17 per hour). The research considered a wide range of quantitative data as well as the experience and perspectives of employers, workers, students and vocational educators. The findings challenge any easy assumptions that more VET will automatically enhance the position of lower paid workers, that all VET can be assumed to be similar in positive effect for lower paid workers, or that lower paid workers share similar situations, including their work/life circumstances.
When measuring the socioeconomic status of young people, the authors find that the SocioEconomic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) works well when reporting participation in higher education at aggregate levels, but performs very poorly when classifying individuals. This has policy implications because it means that programs directing resources to increase educational participation for those with low socioeconomic status may be doing so based on incorrect information. The data used come from the 2003 cohort of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), looking at young people aged 15 to 25 years.
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.
The learning preferences of part-time agriculture students at the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE are the focus of this paper. The ability for providers to offer students flexible attendance patterns and hands-on practical training allied with a balance of alternative course delivery options may improve access and increase student numbers. The research was funded through the NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity initiative and was undertaken by a novice researcher in the Community of Practice Scholarship Program.
This briefing paper considers how young people fared in previous downturns, and discusses how structural labour market changes over the past 20 years have affected the three million young Australians aged between 15 and 24 in the first 12 months of the most recent economic downturn. It also looks at the qualitative evidence from respondents in the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) on how they perceived the economic downturn to have affected their work and study intentions in 2009, and explores the themes arising.
This research investigated pre-apprenticeship training in Australia through a variety of research methods—keyword searches, lists of prescribed pre-apprenticeship courses from state and territory contacts, and a unit record enrolment file. An analysis of this data found that there were ten nationally accredited and 24 training package courses with pre-apprenticeship activity. There were approximately 64 800 course enrolments in the identified pre-apprenticeship courses in 2009. This can be compared with 2007 when there were 50 700 course enrolments in these courses. The major findings were that over half of pre-apprenticeship course enrolments were within the engineering and related technologies field of education and around a third were within the architecture and building field; and the majority of course enrolments were within certificate II courses.
This scoping paper explores the extent and consequences of labour market movement and the characteristics of people who change jobs.
The paper provides an overview of the implications and causes of labour mobility and job tenure using data from major statistical sources and the research literature.
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.
The importance of adult language, literacy and numeracy for greater workforce participation, productivity and social inclusion are well recognised, with both national and international research demonstrating the benefits of increasing proficiency for both individuals and communities. But there are still more questions to be answered, such as what is the extent of adult language, literacy and numeracy provision in Australia, and whose responsibility is it to fund such provision in the workplace? In September 2010, NCVER hosted a forum on behalf of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to explore these questions and what needs to be done to find the answers. This paper presents a summary of those discussions and recommendations for future action.
Research messages 2010 is a collection of summaries of research projects published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). The summaries are clustered under five broad themes used by NCVER to organise its research and analysis: Industry and employers; Students and individuals; Teaching and learning: VET system; and VET in context. Research messages 2010 also has an overview essay that captures the themes and highlights from the research for the year.
This report looks at the potential use of information from the Student Outcomes Survey, including the use of student course satisfaction information and post-study outcomes, as a means of determining markers of training quality.
The results of the consultations NCVER conducted in November and December 2010 to identify research topics using the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) are presented in this paper and will help determine the research topics best suited to the LSAY data. These will be used to shape the 2011-13 LSAY analytical program of research that NCVER conducts on behalf of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
This discussion paper was the first step in NCVER's review of the Survey of Employer Use and Views of the Vocational Education and Training (VET).
Growth in mixed-sector institutions offering both vocational and higher education qualifications is expected to increase given recent and predicted policy changes. This issues paper focuses on the nature of VET provision within institutions accrediting their own higher education programs, most of which are large public universities, and other tertiary education institutions, primarily smaller private providers. It complements previous research on higher education in TAFE. Issues raised for discussion include the broadening role of various providers, governance and funding issues, organisational structures and the implications of mixed sector provision for students, staff and the future of institutions.
There are many factors which might cause a student to drop out of a course of study; some of these are preventable. This paper describes the piloting of a survey tool designed to identify students at risk of not completing. Attendance was found to be the strongest predictor of module completion; low or declining scores on the survey were also predictive of students dropping out. The research for this paper was undertaken by a novice researcher in the Community of Practice Scholarship Program, which is funded through NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity initiative.
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.
Using data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, this report looks at the extent to which a previous spell of unemployment determines current unemployment.
This report explores the beliefs and experiences of new graduates of the certificate IV, with a focus on the graduates' sense of preparedness and confidence in planning, delivering and assessing training, as well as their views on the benefits and limitations of the certificate IV.