Long-Term Outcomes from Australian Vocational Education (original) (raw)
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Qualifications and the future labour market in Australia
2006
This report assesses the supply of, and requirements for, workers with qualifications in the Australian labour market from 2006 to 2016. It aims to identify any imbalances in the number of people with vocational education and training (VET) qualifications by level. Information ...
International Journal of Educational Development, 2019
Vocational education and training has played a central role in promoting the school-to-work transition of young people. Despite this role, the return to Vocational Education and Training (VET) has been neglected in previous studies. This paper aims to examine individual returns to VET over a lifespan and to assess the effects of national VET systems, including school-based and work-based VET systems, on economic outcomes. We use the OECD's Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) dataset for conducting our analyses. The results of this study indicate that vocational track graduates are more likely to have literacy skill disadvantages, short-term employment advantages, and long-term employment disadvantages compared to general track graduates. The most significant finding is that there are substantial differences between work-based and school-based VET systems with regard to their literacy and employment effects. Compared to VET graduates from general education-oriented countries, VET graduates from work-based VET-oriented countries are initially more likely to be employed, but that employment premium narrows faster over time. Therefore, a lifespan overview and the characteristics of national VET systems should enter into policy debates on national educational systems.
Economic returns to adult vocational qualifications
Journal of Education and Work, 2020
Some countries have certifying institutions for competence acquired at the workplace. These institutions provide incentives for workplace training that may have favourable effects on productivity, earnings and labour market participation. We present evidence on the earnings effects of attaining vocational qualifications in adulthood through two alternative routes: (1) apprenticeship and (2) recognition and testing of vocational competence acquired through relevant work experience. Drawing on longitudinal administrative data from Norway and tracking the labour market careers of individuals without completed upper secondary education by age 25, we estimate the impacts of acquiring vocational qualifications on future labour earnings. To allow for differential labour market trajectories of those who do and do not acquire qualifications, we account for unobserved individual heterogeneity in both levels and earnings growth. Without a rich representation of unobserved heterogeneity, estimated earnings effects are exaggerated. We find that vocational qualifications from both the apprenticeship and the experience-based routes boost earnings of men and women. Certification of already acquired skills has some value in itself, but adult apprenticeships have more positive effects on future earnings, as they involve greater individual skills development.
A 'Causal' Estimate of the Effect of Schooling on Full-time Employment among Young Australians
A 'Causal' Estimate of the Effect of Schooling on Full-time Employment among Young Australians, 2003
This report exploits a policy change that occurred in South Australia in the mid-1980s to generate a causal estimate of the effect of schooling on full-time employment outcomes. The results of this study provide evidence that the process of schooling itself has an effect on labour market outcomes and that education reform may have complex outcomes, all of which need to be identified and analysed. This report, published by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), is part of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) research program.
In many advanced market democracies apprenticeship non-completion rates have remained unacceptably high for several decades. In spite of broad agreement over the factors that contribute to the problem, interventions designed to overcome these obstacles have made little sustained difference. This paper first describes the manner in which the issues of non-completion are represented in six different nations. While there are some national differences, each of the solutions to low completion rates is derived from an internal analysis of the training system. Virtually all of the responses designed to decrease non-completion are derived from studies that examine relatively easily measured characteristics of the learners, features of the employment workplace or the activities of training providers. Having established the inwardly focused representation of non-completion and the associated solutions, a novel cross-disciplinary alternative approach to the issue is described. Informed by human geography, heat physiology and vocational education and training policy perspectives, new questions were asked of the very large Australian National Apprentice and Trainee Collection. These queries were designed to test for patterns of seasonality for every commencement, cancellation and withdrawal in all occupations where a contract of training came into force for the past two decades. A significant difference in the timing of cancellations and withdrawals in the trade occupations in northern Australia was detected when compared to the south of the continent. The identification of a potential new contributor to apprenticeship non-completion from outside of the training system suggests the possibility of other external, yet to be identified factors that contribute to high attrition rates that are immune to existing policy responses that originated from inside the training system. For example, the answers to problems of the well-enumerated heavy gender segregation and outcomes for ethnic minorities undertaking apprenticeships may be better derived from more complex cross-disciplinary studies. All of this invites yet another question: have the limits of policy adjustments to the vocational education and training sector, universally known as reforms, reached the limits of their capacity to make an impact on reducing apprenticeship non-completion?
The Earnings and Employment Effects of Young People's Vocational Training in Britain
The Manchester School, 2001
We examine the longer run e¡ects of youth training using the Youth Cohort Study Cohort III. These data follow individuals up to the age of 23 while previous studies typically analyse younger people. The problem of attrition is addressed by using an`item non-response' variable as an instrument to predict drop-out. We estimate earnings and employment equations to analyse the e¡ects of training. The results contrast with those from previous studies by suggesting there are no adverse employment or earnings e¡ects from governmentsponsored training. We ¢nd signi¢cant returns to quality training such as degrees and apprenticeships.
Training and returns to undereducation and overeducation: New Australian evidence
refereed paper presented at the …, 2006
We examine the role of training in explaining the incidence of skill-job mismatch in Australia. The ABS 1997 Survey of Education and Training is utilised to estimate returns to training and the effect of training on the returns to undereducation and overeducation. Care is taken to disentangle the wage effect of job training from selection bias in training participation. The Heckman selection model and quantile regression techniques are employed. The empirical evidence offers three new insights. First, training has a significant positive impact on wages for both men and women. Second, training ameliorates the disadvantage associated with the mismatch between formal education and required education. Third, workers who fail to appreciate the potential gains from training are at a serious disadvantage.