NCVER recently released a report on the latest total VET students and courses data. It found that, for 2023, 5.1 million students were enrolled in nationally recognised VET. This was up nearly 11% from 2022. Moreover:

“An estimated 27% of the Australian resident population aged 15 to 64 years participated in nationally recognised VET.” In addition, over the five-year period from 2019 to 2023, students enrolled in nationally recognised VET increased by around 20%.

NCVER reports that there were 2.3 million students enrolled in nationally recognised programs, while 3.5 million students were enrolled in subjects not delivered as part of a nationally recognised program. However, in this case, the number of government-funded students decreased by 9.7% to 110 265, while domestic full fee-paying students increased by 14.5% to 3.4 million and international full fee-paying students increased by 83.3% to 42 875.

When comparing 2022 with the current year (2023), and breaking things down a little more, the data show that:

  • students enrolled in nationally recognised programs had increased by about 7%
  • students enrolled in stand-alone nationally recognised subjects increased by 14%, and
  • full-year training equivalents (FYTEs) increased by 10.7% to 1.3 million.

Of the 2.3 million enrolled in nationally recognised programs, 2 million were enrolled in training packages. Of the remainder, some were enrolled accredited qualifications (163 100 students) or training package skill sets (115 285 students) or accredited courses (113 260 students).

NCVER also reported that in 2023, the majority of:

  • government-funded students (84.8% or 1.1 million) were enrolled in training package qualifications
  • domestic full fee-paying students (86.4% or 3.4 million) were enrolled in subjects not delivered as part of a nationally recognised program, and
  • international full fee-paying students (84.8% or 249 870) were enrolled in training package qualifications.

In addition, it was reported that, of the enrolled students:

  • 50.5% were male
  • 3.5% were Indigenous
  • 3.8% reported having a disability
  • 22.3% were aged between 30 to 39 years old, and
  • 22.5% had specified Year 12 as their previous highest education level.

Interestingly, however, a relatively high proportion of enrollees also held a bachelor or higher degree already.

About the qualifications and fields of education

In 2023, the highest number of qualification enrolments were in Certificate III level qualifications (41.1% or 1.1million), followed by Certificate IV (21.1% or 561 505). By training package, Community services accounted for 17.8% (or 441 850) of training package qualification enrolments in 2023, followed by Business services (13.7% or 339 735) and Tourism, travel and hospitality (9.7% or 239 360).

“By field of education, Management and commerce accounted for 18.7% (or 546 905) of nationally recognised program enrolments in 2023, followed by Society and culture at 16.5% (or 482 995) and Engineering and related technologies at 15.5% (or 454 060)” and in 2023, “793 485 nationally recognised qualifications were completed.” (“The highest number of qualification completions were at Certificate III level (37.4%), followed by Certificate IV (21.6%) and Certificate II (21.4%) level qualifications.”)

Finally, in 2023, “there were 8.5 million enrolments in stand-alone subjects. The majority of which were delivered by private training providers (6.9 million or 81.7%).” Mostly, these were in subjects required for licensing and other ‘need to have’ purposes.

Information on training providers and programs

In 2023, there were 3607 RTOs that had an active registration and delivered nationally recognised VET. Most (2920), of course, were private providers, but there were also 340 schools, 184 community ed. providers and 125 enterprise providers. These data are also broken down on a state and territory basis in the report itself.

Moreover, in 2023, “77.6% of students were enrolled in nationally recognised training at private training providers, 15.1% at TAFE institutes, 10.5% at community education providers, 2.4% at enterprise providers, 2.2% at schools and 1.5% at universities.”

And in terms of completions….

It’s reported that, in 2023, 905 885 nationally recognised programs were completed. “Of these:

  • 83.0% in training package qualifications
  • 4.6% in accredited qualifications
  • 6.4% in training package skills sets
  • 6.0% in accredited courses.”