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The ‘Higher education report 2010’ is part of a suite of publications which report on the Australian higher education sector in 2010. The report provides: an overview of the higher education sector and its major achievements in 2010; details of funding allocations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA); and an overview of program outcomes (including the allocation of places). This publication primarily relates to higher education matters and programs which fall within the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) but does include some information on research block grant programs which are administered by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR).

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Cross-border exchange in education, or the movement of students or institutions between economies, is part of the exchange of goods and services that brings diverse economies together. It is an important component of the economic cooperation that defines [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] APEC and APEC's endeavours to improve, through cooperation, economic outcomes for its member economies. The strong economic dimension of exchange in education services is complemented by the broader cultural and social benefits of educational exchange, which in turn provide the foundations to further enhance economic outcomes for member economies. Like the exchange of other goods and services, improving the efficiency and effectiveness with which educational services are exchanged between economies is an appropriate objective for the APEC forum, and one which is expected to result in improved economic outcomes and further regional cooperation and development. This paper considers the ways in which education contributes to economic outcomes and the ways in which APEC wide cooperation in education exchange can enhance both educational outcomes and economic and social outcomes for all member economies.

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The 'Higher education report 2007' is part of a suite of publications which report on the Australian higher education sector in 2007. The report provides: an overview of the higher education sector and its major achievements in 2007; details of funding allocations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA); and an overview of programme outcomes (including the allocation of places). As a result of the Administrative Arrangements Orders (AAOs) that took place in late 2007, the former Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) changed its name to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). However, as this report relates to the 2007 calendar year, the Department is referred to as DEST throughout the ‘Higher education report 2007’.

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This article reports on a research study that investigated the way vocational education and training (VET) is viewed in the Australian community. The research aimed to identify any differences in attitudes to the traditional trades as career occupations and to the VET sector in general, across segments within the community, particularly students, parents, secondary school career advisors, and employers. The study also sought to determine the level of knowledge that different segments of the Australian community have of VET. Generally, the overall image of VET was mixed. The study suggested that VET has an image problem as the ‘pathway of choice’ for career education and training compared with university. Most Australians strongly associated a traditional trade job as the only job outcome that could be expected from undertaking VET. At the national level, this research is being considered along with three other projects commissioned in 2007. This research will then contribute to a wider report that will synthesis the issues and propose a way forward.

This article is part of a thematic edition of Vocal entitled ‘What works for vocational education and training in schools in terms of developing connections, building capacity and enhancing collaboration’. Articles are indexed from TD/TNC 94.144 to TD/TNC 94.150 and from TD/TNC 94.264 to TD/TNC 95.276. Show less

The 2008 Graduate Pathways Survey was designed to gain information on employment outcomes five years after completing a bachelor degree, how these changed from graduates' initial outcomes, the pathways taken and the factors that influence outcomes. 9,238 graduates from all Table A higher education providers (with one exception) as well as Bond University and the University of Notre Dame participated in the survey. The 2008 Graduate Pathways Survey was the first national study of its kind in Australia. The key findings were that: (1) graduates can take a few years to establish their careers: the rate of participation in paid work among graduates rose from 84% to 91% between the first and fifth year following graduation; (2) at the national level, the median graduate salary rose from $38,000 to $60,000 in the first five years post-graduation - a 58% increase; (3) graduate outcomes and pathways varied for different fields of education, with some graduates taking longer to settle into their careers; and (4) graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds achieved outcomes on par with the general graduate population.

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The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), on behalf of the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, produces the annual national report for the national vocational education and training (VET) system in Australia. This report covers the 2010 calendar year and provides an assessment of the performance of the national training system as well as detailed information on the operation of the national system and its achievements and challenges. The report covers total reported VET activity, which is broader than government funded VET activity, and refers to all aspects of VET for which data are available for reporting. The Australian VET system (including apprentices and trainees) covers delivery of VET training through a variety of public and private training providers. These include technical and further education (TAFE) institutes and other government providers, universities, secondary schools, industry organisations, adult migrant education scheme providers, enterprises, agricultural colleges, community education providers and privately operated registered training organisations. The report is presented in three sections: section one, ‘Overview’, provides an outline of the report, describing the national VET system, the relevant Intergovernmental Agreements that relate to VET and the economic and social context for the national VET system during 2010; section two, ‘Performance of the national VET system in 2010’, contains an analysis of the system’s performance in 2010 against key indicators relating to participation, achievement and outcomes of total reported VET students and those identified as having a disadvantage in VET; VET system efficiency and employer engagement and satisfaction with VET are also covered; and section three, ‘Appendices’, provides time series statistical tables on the national training system’s performance and includes information on the data sources used as well as additional State and Territory data. Data on a selection of outcomes and outputs included in the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development is also included.

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The ‘Higher education report 2008’ is part of a suite of publications which report on the Australian higher education sector in 2008. The report provides: an overview of the higher education sector and its major achievements in 2008; an overview of the ‘Review of Australian higher education’ (the Bradley Review); program descriptions and details of funding allocations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA); and an overview of program outcomes (including the allocation of places). This publication relates only to higher education matters which fall within the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and does not include information on areas which belong to the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR).

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After finishing compulsory education, young people in England have a range of higher education (HE) and further education (FE) options available to them. While people are familiar with the route taken by most HE learners - completing A Levels and then a degree at university - less is commonly understood about FE at tertiary level. In this note, we address this by describing the educational routes taken by individuals who choose to pursue tertiary-level FE courses. Additionally, we show how learners in different post-18 education routes differ by prior attainment, age and gender. As well as presenting descriptive evidence, we examine the association between different educational pathways and future earnings. Specifically, we present estimates of the early-labour-market returns (at age 26 and age 30) associated with different levels of post-18 qualifications.

We find that, on average, certain FE qualifications, such as Level 4 qualifications for men and Level 5 qualifications for women, are associated with higher average early-labour-market earnings than completing a degree. We find that these patterns hold even once we condition on observable characteristics. Whilst we use the term 'returns', we are careful not to claim that these estimates capture the causal impact of taking these qualifications, as there may be other factors that we do not observe that may potentially account for selection of different individuals into the different routes. This note is structured as follows. We begin by introducing the data and sample used in our study. Next, we present our emerging findings on the different routes taken through post-18 education, as well as the characteristics of learners in different routes. Finally, we investigate earnings outcomes for the different post-18 routes and what happens to those earnings outcomes once we condition on observable characteristics of the people taking them.

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The ‘Higher education report 2006’ is part of a suite of publications which report on the Australian higher education sector in 2006. The report provides: an overview of the higher education sector and its major achievements in 2006; details of funding allocations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA); a review of the performance of higher education providers in delivering student places and other Australian government funded outcomes in 2006; and an overview of programme outcomes (including the allocation of places).

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This is the sixth in a series of annual reports to the Australian Parliament that tracks progress in Indigenous education and training and discusses issues under the major goals of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (AEP). It enables the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Training to report to the Parliament at the end of each funding year on outcomes associated with Indigenous education and training. There were mixed outcomes in Indigenous education and training in 2006. In general, enrolments, retention and employment demonstrated improvement across all education sectors but educational outcomes tended to be either stable or declining. Some of the key findings include: (a) the number of Indigenous children in pre-school increased in 2006 but large differences between attendance rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students remain; (b) appropriate literacy and numeracy awareness levels of Indigenous students in the government systems declined on the 2005 result however the opposite was true in non-government pre-schools; (c) there were significant increases in enrolments in Australian schools in 2006 with the overall proportion of Indigenous school students continuing to increase at both the primary and secondary levels. Despite improvements in enrolments there is still concern about attendance levels; (d) national literacy and numeracy benchmark test results are not encouraging and since 1999 there has been little evidence of improvement in the results - in 2006, the gap between Indigenous and All Students outcomes in the nine benchmarks averaged 20 percentage points and ranged from 13 percentage points in Year 3 to 32 percentage points in Year 7 numeracy; (e) since 2001 the Year 10 retention rate has improved by almost six percentage points to 91 per cent while the Year 11 rate has improved to 68 per cent; (f) the proportion of Indigenous students who achieved a Year 12 Certificate decreased for the first time since 2001 from 51 per cent to 45 per cent in 2006; (g) the vocational education and training (VET) sector continues to provide an important service for many Indigenous people - Indigenous VET students aged 17 or less had twice the participation rate of non-Indigenous students while there were 12 Indigenous male VET students for every Indigenous male university student; (h) almost half of all Indigenous students are enrolled in courses at the AQF Certificate I and II levels, about twice the rate of non-Indigenous students; (i) there were significant increases in the numbers of Indigenous apprentices in 2006, in the number of undertaking Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Certificate III and higher level courses and in the number of course completions; (j) overall, 2006 was the best year to date for Indigenous employment in VET institutions with increased numbers of teachers and other staff; (k) overall Indigenous enrolments in higher education returned to 2001-2004 levels after a decline in 2005; (l) there has been an increase in the participation in higher level courses and a decline in students undertaking Enabling and other non-degree courses; and (m) a strong demand continues for Indigenous graduates who have higher take-up rates into full time employment than non-Indigenous graduates and higher starting salaries. Show less