Australian community vocational education and training (VET) providers excel at bringing their graduates into employment.
That’s the key message arising from the report Government-funded Student Outcomes 2017, released by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER).
Australian community education providers have the highest increase of graduate employment, compared to graduates of TAFE and private for-profit training organisations: a 15.2% increase in employment, compared to 8.7% of TAFE graduates and 10.1% of for-profit training organisation graduates.
“Although the number of community education graduates employed after training slightly lags behind the other sectors at 77%, that’s simply because of the much larger percentage of unemployed people who study with community providers,” said Dr Don Perlgut, CEO of Community Colleges Australia.
“The message here is simple: If you want to make a difference to the employment prospects of Australians not in work, the not-for-profit community education sector is your best bet,” said Dr Perlgut.
Graduates of community providers also rated their training very highly, topping all other sectors with declaring that the training has achieved the main aim, and providing consistent satisfaction.
Table 9 of the Report, extracted below, compares community education graduates with those from TAFE and private for-profit providers.
| Table 9: Findings for government-funded graduates by training characteristics, 2017 (%) | |||||
| Employed after training | Difference in proportion employed before training to after | Employed or in further study | Achieved main reason for doing the training | Satisfied with overall quality of training | |
| Provider type | |||||
| TAFE/other government | 70.6 | 8.7 | 84.9 | 83.0 | 88.4 |
| Community education | 64.0 | 15.2 | 77.0 | 84.0 | 87.2 |
| Private for-profit | 76.8 | 10.1 | 83.2 | 82.4 | 87.3 |
| All graduates | 73.5 | 9.7 | 83.8 | 82.8 | 87.8 |
| All graduates in 2016 | 73.4 | 8.0 | 84.7 | 82.2 | 86.2 |
Source: Government-funded student outcomes 2017: data slicer, National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), Adelaide, 21 November 2017.
Notes on this table and the report, from the NCVER:
Improved employment status after training is defined as either employment status changing from not employed before training to employed after training OR employed at a higher skill level after training OR received a job-related benefit. An individual may have reported a positive response to more than one measure contributing to improved employment status after training.
This resource provides a summary of the outcomes of students who completed government-funded vocational education and training (VET) during 2016, with the data collected in mid-2017. Government-funded VET is broadly defined as all Commonwealth and state/territory government-funded training delivered by technical and further education (TAFE) institutes, other government providers (such as universities), community education providers and private training providers.
Out of scope of this resource on government-funded training are students who undertook fee-for-service training; international students; students who undertook recreational, leisure or personal enrichment (short) courses; students who undertook VET delivered in schools, where training activity was undertaken as part of a senior secondary certificate; and students under 18 years of age.
