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The Australian Commonwealth Government is seeking to encourage young people to remain in education or training until they have sufficient skills or qualifications to secure long term employment. From the beginning of 1999, payments to young people aged 15 to 24 have been consolidated as the Youth Allowance (YA). YA is an income support scheme for students aged 16 to 24 years and jobseekers aged 16 to 21 years. Policy requires young people under the age of 18 who leave school without completing Year 12, to participate in full time education or training, or to undertake a combination of activities such as part time study and voluntary work. YA was introduced to address concerns that previous income support arrangements for young people were inadequate and not supportive of young people to be in full time education or training. To prepare for the introduction of the YA, the Victorian government undertook a series of Successful Learning Projects to look at ways of increasing the participation of young people in education. This report is one of the reports from the projects. It focuses on the assessment of the educational progress of young people who are required to return to, or remain in, education or training under the provisions of YA. While the main focus is on ways of evaluating student growth, and therefore on measuring the 'added value' provided by the programs that they undertake, the nature of those learning programs is also addressed.