Search Results

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 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

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

This technical report is the questionnaires for 1975, 1978 to 1994 for the 1961 cohort of the youth in transition survey. Show less

LSAY briefing, produced by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), is a series which aims to provide summaries of findings from ACER research and to identify some of the implications for policy and further research. It is based on data from ACER's Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project and key LSAY reports. This issue, which examines the main pathways by which Australian youth move from school to work, highlights that: the school-to-work pathways in Australia are highly diverse and individualised; by the mid-1990s, 43% of Year 10 students from the late 1980s had obtained either a university degree or a TAFE diploma or were studying for one of these qualifications; tertiary qualifications had considerable influence in maintaining full-time employment; the majority of school leavers without tertiary qualifications spend most of their first seven post-school years in full-time work; about 16% of male Year 10 students and 20% of female students had problematic pathways; young people whose main after school activity in the first year was either an apprenticeship, full-time employment or full-time study were more likely to experience successful pathways.

This brief is based on a paper presented at the Australian Centre conference in Potsdam, Germany in May 2000, which was organised by the Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET). The paper, which was published as CEET working paper no. 31, is indexed at TD/TNC 62.35. Show less

Focuses on current theory, practice, and policy relating to the career and work education field. Published three times a year, it contains articles on career planning and guidance, labour market trends, latest research, vocational training, and case studies of innovative programs. Aimed at professionals in educational and academic settings, community and government agencies, and business and industrial settings. Show less