NCVER recently released its annual statistics publication: ‘Government-funded students and courses 2023.’ It “provides a summary of data relating to students, programs, subjects and training providers in Australia’s government-funded vocational education and training (VET) system, defined as all Commonwealth and state or territory government-funded training delivered by technical and further education (TAFE) institutes, other government providers (such as universities), private providers and community education providers.”
What the publication tells us
It reports that, “in 2023, 1 256 365 students were enrolled in government-funded vocational education and training (VET), comprised of:
- 1 192 900 students enrolled in nationally recognised training
- 96 405 students enrolled in non-nationally recognised training.”
Of these, the great majority (84.6%) were enrolled training package qualifications while 7.8% were undertaking accredited qualifications or courses (3.7%). A further 5.9 % were doing locally developed skills sets or courses comprising at least one nationally recognised subject (0.7%), while 1.9% were doing training package skill sets. Finally, 2.1% were undertaking stand-alone nationally recognised subjects.
Comparing overall data with 2022, it’s reported that, in 2023:
- student numbers increased by 5.0%
- full-year training equivalents (FYTEs) increased by 6.2%
- students enrolled in nationally recognised VET increased by 4.8%, while
- students enrolled in nationally recognised programs increased by 6.6%, and
- students enrolled in stand-alone nationally recognised subjects increased by 3.6%
- students enrolled in non-nationally recognised training increased by 7.6%.
In addition, an estimated 7.1% of the Australian resident population aged 15 to 64 years participated in government-funded VET in 2023, and, over the five-year period from 2019 to 2023, student numbers increased by 9.2%.
In 2023 the majority of qualification enrolments were in a Certificate III (48.3% of all qualification enrolments) or a Certificate IV (21.4%). The remainder were enrolled at other levels (AQF I, II or V), with the lowest enrolment numbers being in Certificate Is.
Subject enrolments were also up; not only those comprised of units of competency and accredited units, but also in stand-alone non-nationally recognised subjects or modules. These latter ones were where there was significant growth of around 20% over numbers in 2022.
In terms of fields of study Engineering and related technologies was the most popular known field for government-funded nationally recognised qualification enrolments in 2023, followed by Society and culture and Management and commerce that were roughly equal in terms of enrolment numbers. Community Services held the largest share of nationally recognised training package qualification enrolments, followed by Business Services.
The student profile
The data show that, for government funded students in 2023:
- 51% were female
- 7% were Indigenous
- 8% reported as having a disability
- 2% were aged between 15 to 19 years old, and
- 7% had a previous highest education level of year 12.
In terms of training providers
In 2023, compared with 2022, student numbers at TAFE institutes were up 8.3% and also up at other government providers by 10.4%. While numbers were up at both community education and other training providers by 17.1% and 1.6% respectively, they were down at private training providers by 0.9%.
Other data and information are available from NCVER
You can access an historical time series of these data starting on 1981 here. In addition, you can access NCVER’s DataBuilder here. This data set “allows users to quickly create customised tables using the latest Government-funded students and courses data, filter by a selection of variables and compare training activity over time. There are four separate datasets available: students, program enrolments, program completions and subject enrolments.”
