This report examines the pathways of recent school leavers who enter the higher education sector in Australia. The focus is on the first three years after completing senior secondary school. The report has four broad aims: (1) to provide estimates of the proportions of entrants who change courses or leave the higher education sector before…

This report examined the experiences of young people during their first year of tertiary education. The data used in this report are drawn from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), which study the progress of cohorts of young Australians as they make the transition from secondary school to work and further education and training,…

This report examines the relationship between students' attitudes to school and intentions to participate in education and training, and the influence of these attitudes and intentions on participation in Year 12 and in further education and training. Students' attitudes to school, educational intentions and attainments are considered in the…

This research study investigated the patterns of course choice in Year 12, and the consequences of these choices. The literature has pointed to differences in curriculum participation according to background variables such as social background and gender. If these choices lead to different but equal outcomes then there is no problem: there are…

Prepared by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) under an agreement with the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), this report has three broad aims: (1) To describe the relationship between life satisfaction and participation in a range of post-school education, training and labour market…

New Apprenticeships provide a pathway from school to adult working life for a significant proportion of each cohort of young people and thus make a potentially important contribution to the formation of skills for individuals and for the community as a whole. New Apprenticeships are based on a formal combination of study and work that links…

This report focuses on a group of young people who are not involved in full-time education or the labour force, that is, they are not studying full-time, nor are they working or looking for work. The data used in this report are drawn from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), which studies the progress of cohorts of young…

This report focuses on Year 12 students who apply to go to university but are not offered a place. This group is commonly referred to as indicating a level of unmet demand for university. The size and nature of the group are potentially important considerations in planning higher education. The report compares the Applied, no offer group with…

Over the past two decades, both the number and the proportion of students undertaking formal study past the compulsory school years have increased dramatically. Between 1991 and 2000, for example, the number of people aged 19 and under participating in all forms of vocational education and training (VET) increased by more than 50 per cent (NCVER,…

In most Australian schools, there are significant numbers of students who are failing to learn effectively. They underachieve in all or some of the basic skill areas of the curriculum. Concerns regarding the most appropriate methods with which to address the needs of these students remain widespread amongst teachers. This publication examines the…

This report sets out to provide the National Remodelling Team (NRT) with comprehensive details on stakeholders' views about the second year of the remodelling programme. This report is divided into nine chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) outlines the aims of the evaluation and the methodology used; (3) describes the findings from the survey of local…

The National Remodelling Team (NRT) was established in April 2003 by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and hosted within the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). The role of the NRT was to work with local education authorities (LEAs) to support schools in the implementation of the changes to teachers' contracts introduced by…

The Excellence in Cities (EiC) policy was launched in 1999 with the aim of improving the attainment of all pupils in disadvantaged urban areas. Further Phases were launched in 2000 and 2001, by when EiC covered about a third of the secondary schools in England and over 60 per cent of the minority ethnic pupils in England attended schools in EiC…

This research follows up a study conducted in 1998 by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to investigate teachers' and students' views on the factors affecting students' choices of whether or not to apply to Oxford and Cambridge universities. It identifies what has changed since 1998 and areas in which the universities could…

The Increased Flexibility for 14-16 year olds Programme (IFP) was introduced in 2002 by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to provide vocational learning opportunities at key stage 4 for those young people who would benefit most. The programme, which entailed FE colleges and training providers working in partnership with schools to…