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This report is part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project which studies the transition of several groups of young Australians from school into postsecondary education and/or work. It discusses changes in the patterns of participation over the last two decades and also addresses several policy and conceptual issues relevant to educational participation. These include rurality, ethnicity, the influence of socioeconomic background, part-time work, and the effect of schools and psychological factors. Findings of this survey include: 76 per cent of the 1995 cohort participated in Year 12 in 1998; females are more likely to participate in Year 12 than males and gender differences have grown with more young women participating in higher education than men; Year 9 students whose parents work in high status occupations and/or come from more educated backgrounds are more likely to continue on to Year 12; students from language backgrounds other than English are consistently more likely to participate in Year 12 and higher education; students living in non-metropolitan areas are less likely to participate in Year 12 and higher education; Year 12 participation is strongly associated with achievement in literacy and numeracy in Year 9; and occupational background, school type and achievement are not as strongly associated with participation in higher education as they once were. Show less

The purpose of this paper is to identify school effects on student performance for tertiary entrance in Australia, taking into account student-level predictors using longitudinal data from the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. It finds that aspects of schooling, such as positive attitudes to school and disciplinary climate, affect student performance at the student level but not generally at the school level. The socioeconomic context of schools has no effect on student performance when taking into account schools' academic context. Apart from academic context, teacher shortage, academic press, and teacher efficacy were the only school factors that had positive significant effects on student performance. The policy implications are that school-based policies are unlikely to improve performance or promote equity, but, instead, policies should focus more on students falling behind, who are found across the school system, not limited to a small proportion of schools with particular characteristics.

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At the request of the Minister for Schools and Vocational Education national patterns and trends in reading comprehension and numeracy over the time period from This report examines the performance, and levels of mastery, on tests of reading comprehension and numeracy of Australian students in junior secondary school between 1975 and 1995. Data for the analyses reported were drawn from two national monitoring studies and other studies of representative samples of junior secondary school students designed to monitor the progress of young people through school into further education, training and work. In each of the studies students completed tests that are similar to those conducted in the Australian states and territories and overseas to monitor student performance. The tests focussed on reading skills (which correlate highly with other aspects of literacy) and numeracy. The analyses reported include: comparisons of the percentage of students correctly answering common items; the mean levels of achievement and percentage of students attaining mastery at different times; and comparisons over time of achievement and in some instances mastery, by gender, ethnicity, and social background. In addition, the report discusses the results obtained from multilevel multivariate analyses of both school-level and individual-level factors.

Further publications arising from this research program may be found at: TD/TNC 56.13; TD/TNC 56.14; TD/TNC 56.15; TD/TNC 56.16; TD/TNC 59.91; TD/TNC 59.139; TD/TNC 59.140; TD/TNC 59.141; TD/TNC 60.61 and TD/TNC 60.62. Show less

The increasing emphasise on and expansion of education and the importance of qualifications raises the issue of what happens to those who do not complete their secondary school education. This report, focusing on early school leaving in Australia forms part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) research program. It focuses on students who leave school before the beginning of Year 11. The first part of the paper examines the social and demographic characteristics of early school leavers. The second part reports on the reasons for early school leaving and the third part of the study compares school leaving with social background, demographic, social and attitudinal factors. It also focuses on the effect of individual schools on early school leaving. The final section of the study examines the post-school activities of early school leavers focusing on their labour force participation.

Further publications arising from this research program may be found at: TD/TNC 56.13; TD/TNC 56.14; TD/TNC 56.15; TD/TNC 56.16; TD/TNC 59.91; TD/TNC 59.139; TD/TNC 59.140; TD/TNC 59.141; TD/TNC 60.61 and TD/TNC 60.62. 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 whether students' educational performance is influenced by where they live, highlights that: there are small differences between the literacy and numeracy performances of rural and urban students in the middle years of their education; there are only slight differences in their choice of subjects in Year 12 between rural and urban students, with rural students studying in the areas of health, home science and agriculture more frequently than their urban counterparts; the participation of young people living in regional and remote areas in Year 12 and higher education is lower than that of their urban counterparts; and the rates of participation in VET for rural people are at least as high as in urban areas. 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 on early school leaving and 'non-completion in Australia' highlights that: students who perform well at school are less likely to leave school early; boys have a greater tendency than girls to leave school; students whose parents are less educated than average are more likely to leave school early; more than 20 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students leave school by the start of Year 11; only a small number of schools impact the school leaving rate; and a high proportion of early leavers in recent years have gained employment. Show less