The National Centre of Vocational Education Research (NCVER) released the latest data on the students who studied VET in 2024, the courses they enrolled in, and the providers they studied with.

The national data on ‘Total VET Activity’ reports on all students enrolled in VET – government-funded students, international students and those who are paying their own fees or their employer is paying for them (domestic fee-for-service students).

In 2024, 5.1 million students (i.e. equivalent to 19% of the Australian population aged 15 to 64 years) were enrolled in a VET course – an increase of 1.8% since 2023.

The most popular courses were single standalone subjects eg HLTAID009 – Provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which on its own accounted for 25.9% of ALL single subject VET enrolments. That is, there were more than 2.3 million enrolments in just this one first aid unit.

It is great to know that so many Australians (and international students) are trained to offer assistance to people in the case of medical emergencies. It does however distort the picture of the full extent of VET activity.

It is important to keep in mind that outside of VET’s single subject enrolments, there were a staggering 2.1 million students enrolled in full VET qualifications and a further 220,000 enrolled in ‘short courses’, typically skill sets in 2024.

The NCVER reports the following enrolment patterns for the different cohorts of students:

“Domestic government-funded students were primarily:

  • enrolled in qualifications: 1 228 110 (93.2%), remained steady from 2023
  • training at TAFE institutes: 633 385 (48.1%), down 1.4% from 2023
  • enrolled in Certificate III qualifications: 627 055 (47.6%), up 1.1% from 2023.

Domestic full fee-paying students were primarily enrolled:

  • in stand-alone subjects (3.5 million or 87.1%) up 3.6% from 2023, followed by qualifications (710 010 or 17.6%) down 2.6% from 2023
  • at private providers (3.5 million or 87.5%) up 3.2% from 2023.

International full fee-paying students were primarily:

  • enrolled in qualifications: 284 925 (96.5%), up 10.4% from 2023
  • training at private training providers: 264 580 (89.7%), up 0.3% from 2023
  • enrolled in Diploma or higher level qualifications: 166 650 (56.5%), up 22.8% from 2023.”