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The focus of this report, which uses longitudinal data to map the dynamics of the youth labour market and to identify factors that are important in securing full-time work, is on the transition to full-time employment of young people who do not go to university. The study reports on the education and labour market activities of a national sample of youth on their leaving school and analyses the influences of social and demographic factors, school and other educational factors, and initial experiences in the labour market on their post-school activity four years after leaving school, focusing on factors influencing being in full-time employment four years after leaving school. The following research and policy issues are addressed: the general youth labour market situation; the influence of social background factors; the effects of education, including school leaving status and vocational education; and the role of prior labour market experiences. The report contains an executive summary, six chapters and five appendices. Following the introduction, chapter two sets the scene for subsequent chapters by presenting and examining the activity profiles of the group of school leavers who did not go to university; chapter three looks at the pathways of young people in the years leaving school to examine the extent of year-to-year movement in and out of activities; chapter four examines the correlates of activities in the first and fourth years after leaving school, investigating social and socioeconomic background, education and training, and labour market experiences; chapter five explores the influences on securing full-time work using a base model comprising factors found in the previous chapter to have significant influence on being in full-time work in the fourth year after leaving school; and the final chapter addresses the policy and research issues. The report does not support ‘crisis’ accounts of the youth labour market and disputes claims that young people who are not fully engaged in full-time work or study are ‘at risk’ of an unsuccessful school-to-work transition. The findings indicate that: 61% of young men and 45% of young women were in full-time employment in the first year after school; by the fourth year, 77% of young men and 64% of young women were working full-time; the effects of post-secondary vocational education other than apprenticeship and traineeship were mixed; full-time study in the first year after leaving school did not increase the odds of being in full-time work in the fourth year; and among those already in full-time work, a TAFE certificate or diploma tended to further increase the chances of staying in full-time work. Show less

This research study, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), has identified the capabilities that characterise effective academic leaders in a range of roles and has produced resources to develop and monitor these leadership capabilities. It has identified that the core focus for leadership in the current operating context faced by our universities has to be on achieving effective change management and implementation. The approach has been to build upon a decade of studying professional capability, development and change leadership in a range of contexts. The study undertook an extensive international literature review, an online survey, and a series of national and international sector feedback workshops that tested the veracity of the results and identified their key implications. The study found that there was agreement that, in the current context, effective change implementation is a central challenge facing Australian higher education and its leaders, and that developing organisational and individual capabilities to manage change is a key priority. Show less

This report investigates the relationship between post-school plans, family background and having a lifelong learning orientation. It highlights the important role of vocational education and training such as TAFE as an alternative for students with no plans to study at university. Data was drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth (LSAY) and the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The study investigated the post-school plans of young people, with a particular interest in those from families of low socioeconomic background, the factors associated with the development of these plans, and the association between types of post-school plans and predispositions towards lifelong learning. The study suggests that the most important factors for predicting post-school plans are gender, ability and the vocational orientation of the student. An orientation to lifelong learning also has an effect but, according to the LSAY data, only a small one. According to the findings, financial disadvantage is not a barrier to post-school study when students choose to study at TAFE or to pursue other vocational options. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were found to be more likely to realise their plans for tertiary education when those plans do not initially involve attending university. Four guiding principles for policy development are proposed: (1) the establishment of a national youth mentoring strategy to enhance support provided to young people by families, communities and schools to enable them to make successful choices about their future employment and/or study; (2) government funding to support schools to develop more diverse and flexible pathways into work and/or post-school education to improve outcomes for all students; (3) incentives for businesses to work with schools and tertiary institutions to provide increased opportunities for mentoring and more effective career counselling to ensure that students are better prepared to make choices about post-school work and study; and (4) improved family and community support systems to better support students’ transition from school to work and the development of positive attitudes towards lifelong learning. Show less

This paper looks at a range of possible approaches to competency assessment in the professions. Wider issues associated with competency-based assessment, and the advantages and disadvantages of various assessment approaches are discussed. The chapters are: Overview; Conceptualising occupational competence: implications for assessment; Setting standards: implications for assessment; Choosing methods of assessment; Maintaining an assessment system.

A companion paper, ‘Establishing competency-based standards in the professions’ is indexed at TD/TNC 87.1474. Show less

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) program studies the progress of several groups of young Australians as they move from school into post-secondary education and work. This technical report is the codebook for wave six of the Y95 cohort. The Y95 cohort of LSAY was drawn from the national sample of approximately 13,000 year nine students. It was constructed by randomly selecting two year nine classes from a national sample of 300 schools designed to represent state and sector. The report describes the contents of the dataset and provides an explanation of all the variables in that dataset. Show less

The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) funded a project in 2001 to analyse and report on industry requirements for ‘employability skills’. This project was jointly managed by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and was completed in March 2002. Employability skills were defined for the purposes of the project as ‘skills required not only to gain employment, but also to progress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions’. The project was commissioned to provide: (a) advice on possible new requirements for generic employability competencies that industry needs, or will need in the forseeable future, since the development of the Mayer key competencies; (b) clear definitions of what Australian industry and enterprises perceive as employability skills and the terminology being used to describe them; and (c) a proposed suite of employability skills and assessment and reporting options. The project also investigated industry reactions to the proposed suite and reporting options and undertook case studies involving a number of large enterprises and focus group research with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This report is based on a review of Australian and overseas policy and research literature on key employability skills. It clarifies concepts and terminology, analyses the principles and purposes of different approaches to key employability skills, develops a framework of such skills to support the fieldwork aspects of the overall project, and suggests strategies to facilitate the development of these skills more effectively within Australian education and training.

The project final report is indexed at TD/TNC 70.178. The report on detailed case studies with large enterprises is indexed at TD/TNC 70.180 and the report on the SMEs research is indexed at TD/TNC 70.181. Show less

As the vocational education and training (VET) system moves to address the broader learning outcomes and set goals and expectations to address the needs of individuals, employers and society in the 21st century, policymakers and providers need to consider what data and processes are needed to monitor the effectiveness of the system and to drive a continuous improvement approach that will directly impact on the quality of teaching and broader learning outcomes. Key questions raised for consideration in this paper are: How can notions of system quality in VET be refocused to drive outcomes crucial to addressing the needs of individuals, employers and society in the 21st century? What are the skills that have been identified as key to success in the 21st century workforce and society? What is known about current levels of foundation skills of the Australian workforce and general population? How can data be used to enhance 21st century skill development in VET? Show less

The South Australian 'Early years of school' policy, changed the way that an identifiable subset of students progressed through junior primary school, affecting individuals born in specific months of the year, with those born in the remaining months and unaffected by the policy affording a natural comparison group. Analysis indicated that the major substantive change between the two groups was the increased education gained by the affected group. Further analysis revealed that it appeared that an additional year of junior primary school generates an increase in the probability of being employed full time within a year of leaving school by approximately 11 per cent, this only applying to those students who did not go on to full time post-school studies. It is suggested that the results of this study provide evidence that the process of schooling itself has an effect on labour market outcomes. It is also indicated that education reform may have complex outcomes, all of which need to be identified and analysed. Show less

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) program studies the progress of several groups of young Australians as they move from school into post-secondary education and work. This technical report is the codebook for wave six of the Y98 cohort. The Y98 cohort of LSAY was drawn from the national sample of approximately 14,000 year nine students. It was constructed by randomly selecting two year nine classes from a sample of schools designed to represent state and sector. The report describes the contents of the dataset and provides an explanation of all the variables in that dataset. Show less

This technical report is the questionnaires for 1980, 1985 to 1994 for the 1970 cohort of the youth in transition survey. Show less