NCVER has just released the 2023 figures for VET in schools participation. According to NCVER’s press release:
“The VET in Schools 2023 report shows 252 105 school students undertook VET as part of their senior secondary certificate of education in 2023, a 3.8% increase from 2022. Of these, 19 310 (or 7.7%) participated in a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship, and 232 795 (or 92.3%) in other VET in Schools programs.”
However, VET in schools student numbers were either up or down in individual jurisdictions. They were down in the Northern Territory, the ACT and Tasmania, but up in NSW, WA, Victoria, SA and Queensland. There was a small increase in NSW but relatively large increases in both SA and Queensland.
Student numbers are particularly large in Queensland (nearly 102 000) but are also significant in Victoria (nearly 54 000) and NSW (around 46 500). Tasmania, the ACT and NT have quite small numbers. There are more middling numbers in WA, about 31 400, while there are smaller numbers in SA (nearly 12 000).
And, as the report found:
“In 2023, the majority of VET in Schools students were enrolled at a government school (151 160 or 60.0%), followed by a catholic school (45 670 or 18.1%).”
However, independent schools have nearly 37 000 enrolments.
In terms of where they study, in 2023, 98 730 (or 39.2%) were enrolled to undertake VET with a private training provider, and 70 980 (or 28.2%) with a school. In all, 34 735 were enrolled at a TAFE.
There were 368 470 qualification enrolments. In terms of their level of study, the majority of qualification enrolments were at Certificate II level (209 015 or 56.7%), followed by Certificate III (121 170 or 32.9%). Certificate I enrolments were just shy of 26 000, while enrolments at higher levels (Certificate IV or Diploma) were relatively modest.
“In 2023, there were 131 975 qualification completions. The highest number of qualification completions was in Certificate II (77 725 or 58.9%), followed by Certificate III (37 365 or 28.3%).”
In terms of the field of study, there were 342 090 enrolments in training package qualifications, an increase of 4.2% from 2022. The most popular training package was Tourism, Travel and Hospitality (52 915 or 15.5%), followed by Sport, Fitness and Recreation (48 060 or 14.0%). However, other prominent ones were Business Services (40 185) and – less so – Construction, Plumbing and Services (23 355), Community Services (21 655) and Creative Arts and Culture (20 820).
Many of the qualifications in these packages are relatively easy for schools to deliver, or tie in well with other related academic subjects.
As with similar NCVER publications, Databuilder is also available. It “is a fast and easy-to-use tool to construct tables using NCVER data, allowing users to instantly access key attributes from most of NCVER’s collections from the one place and customise data outputs by:
- adding/removing variables from the table
- dragging variables between rows and columns
- filtering on specific categories
- export data to MS Excel for further analysis.”
