National Centre for Vocational Education Research - VET ......recognised vocational education and training (VET) qualifications collected under total VET activity, that is, for qualifications

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Australian vocational education and training statistics

VET qualification completion rates 2018

National Centre for Vocational Education Research

Highlights This publication presents the first observed actual completion rates for nationally recognised vocational education and training (VET) qualifications collected under total VET activity, that is, for qualifications that commenced in 2015. Completion rates are projected for subsequent years.

Completion rates for VET qualifications commencing in 2015, the first year for which observed actual rates are available, were:

• 41.4% for all qualifications

• 42.0% for training package qualifications

• 35.7% for accredited qualifications

• 30.0% for qualifications at certificate I

• 36.1% for qualifications at diploma or higher

• 46.6% for government-funded qualifications undertaken by domestic students

• 33.5% for fee-for-service qualifications undertaken by domestic students

• 58.3% for fee-for-service qualifications undertaken by international students.

• By level of education, completion rates were highest for certificate IVqualifications (47.0%) followed by certificate III (44.5%).

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rates 2018, NCVER, Adelaide.

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provided through the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

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TD/TNC 140.16

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VET qualification completion rates 2018 3

Contents Introduction 4

Summary 5

Tables 7

Terms 10

Explanatory notes 12

Tables 1 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates

by type of training for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 7

2 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 7

3 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by state/territory of delivery location for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 8

4 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by provider type for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 8

5 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by funding source for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 8

6 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for government-funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 9

7 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for domestic fee-for-service funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 9

8 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for international fee-for-service funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18 9

Figures 1 Completion rates for nationally recognised VET qualifications commencing in 2015 by level of education (%) 5

2 Subject load pass rates for nationally recognised VET qualifications commencing in 2018 by level of education (%) 6

3 Definition of the states of a VET qualification in the Markov chain model used to calculate completion rates 13

4 Australian vocational education and training statistics

Introduction

This publication presents completion rates for nationally recognised vocational education and training (VET) qualifications; namely training package qualifications and accredited qualifications, at certificate I or above.

About this publication A qualification completion rate is the proportion of VET qualifications started in a given year that will eventually be completed.

Completion rates are simple to calculate with a cohort of students who start together in a very short qualification with a defined end date. The context in VET is, however, far more complex. Qualification lengths vary and may span several years, students commence at different times, and many study part-time. Waiting for all students to complete or ‘drop out’ of their training before calculating an actual completion rate gives a reliable answer but does not provide timely data. For this reason, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) calculates two different rates:

• Observed actual completion rates are calculated using the unique student identifier (USI) or other student and registered training organisation (RTO) attributes to link data for an individual student at a given RTO from commencement to completion. In this way, an accurate measure of the proportion of students who begin a VET qualification in a given year who then go on to complete can be reported. Observed actual rates are only reported for qualifications that commenced four years prior to the most recent data collection period, based on the assumption that enough time has passed for all students who were going to complete their qualification to have done so. We allow four years for students to complete their qualification, based on the duration of a typical qualification and how long it takes for a completion to be reported.

• Projected completion rates are an estimate of the proportion of VET qualifications commenced in a given year that will eventually be completed. Rates for the three most recent years are projected to account for students taking different lengths of time to complete their qualification. Projected rates for commencements in recent years, particularly 2018, are overstated to due the projection methodology. Projected completion rates become more accurate over the three years until they become observed actual rates in the fourth year. Refer to the explanatory notes for further details.

Completion rates presented in this publication differ from completion numbers presented in Total VET students and courses. Completion numbers presented in that publication are a raw count of the number of qualifications that were completed each year, regardless of when they commenced. As such, they cannot be used to derive completion rates for qualifications that commenced in a given year.

Qualification completion rates are presented here with subject load pass rates (for subjects associated with qualifications at certificate I or above) in each table of this publication. There are distinct differences between qualification completion and subject load pass rates and how these are calculated; as such, trends may differ both in size and direction. Subject load pass rates provide an indication of how a collection of students are progressing in a single year, as subjects are usually completed within the year. Qualification completion rates provide insight into the proportion of students that enrol in a qualification who complete their training and the proportion who do not.

More information Completion rates previously published for a particular year are revised each year due to the reporting of additional qualification completions in the National VET Provider Collection and National VET in Schools Collection.

For projected completion rates for various demographic and training attributes, please see the supporting data product available at .

For more information, refer to the explanatory notes on page 12.


Summary

Completion rates Completion rates are projected for the first three years after a qualification commenced. Observed actual completion rates are only reported for qualifications that commenced in 2015, based on the assumption that enough time has passed for all students who were going to complete their qualification to have done so.

Observed actual completion rates Completion rates for nationally recognised VET qualifications commencing in 2015 were:

• 41.4% for all qualifications • 42.0% for training package qualifications • 35.7% for accredited qualifications

By level of education, completion rates were highest for certificate IV qualifications (47.0%) followed by certificate III (44.5%).

Projected completion rates The completion rate for nationally recognised VET qualifications that:

• commenced in 2016 is projected to be 42.0% • commenced in 2017 is projected to be 45.6%. • commenced in 2018 is projected to be 52.0%.

Projected completion rates, particularly for qualifications commencing in 2018, are likely to be overstated due to the high proportion of continuing students in the forecast calculations. As time passes, projections come closer to observed actuals as more records reach their final state of “completed” or “discontinued” (refer to the explanatory notes on page 12 for further information). Any trend analysis must be made with caution due to the preliminary nature of the most recently submitted data.

Figure 1 Observed actual and projected completion rates for nationally recognised VET qualifications commencing in 2015-2018 by level of education (%)

* Projected completion rates, particularly for qualifications commencing in 2018, are likely to be overstated due to the high proportion of continuing students in the forecast calculations. As time passes, projections come closer to actuals as more records reach their final state of “completed” or “discontinued”.

30.0

41.244.5

47.0

36.1

29.7

39.742.9

47.443.8

28.5

41.045.1

51.956.6

38.4

45.751.0

58.363.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Certificate I Certificate II Certificate III Certificate IV Diploma or higher

2015 (observed actual) 2016 (projected) 2017 (projected) 2018 (projected*)


Subject load pass rates A VET qualification is made up of a number of subjects, also referred to as ‘modules’ or ‘units of competency’. The subject load pass rate is weighted to account for the fact that subjects are of different lengths. The calculation is based on the annual hours (or full year training equivalent — FYTE) for each assessable module or unit of competency. A subject load pass rate is the ratio of hours studied by students who passed their subject(s) to the total hours committed to by all students who passed, failed or withdrew from the corresponding subject(s).

For qualifications that commenced in 2018, subject load pass rates were:

• 82.7% for all qualifications • 83.6% for training package qualifications • 72.6% for accredited qualifications

By level of education, subject load pass rates were highest for certificate III qualifications (84.8%) followed by certificate II (83.5%) qualifications that commenced in 2018.

Subject load pass rates have remained steady over the last four years for all qualification levels with the exception of diploma or higher level qualifications where rates increased by 8.7 percentage points between 2015 and 2018.

Figure 2 Subject load pass rates for nationally recognised VET qualifications commencing in 2015-2018 by level of education (%)

68.3

82.286.7

83.3

72.072.2

83.6 86.0 81.6

71.871.2

83.2 85.2 81.577.2

71.5

83.5 84.8 82.7 80.7

0

20

40

60

80

100

Certificate I Certificate II Certificate III Certificate IV Diploma or higher

2015 2016 2017 2018


Tables Table 1 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by type of training for

qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Type of training Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected

2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018

Training package qualifications 42.0 42.6 46.6 53.4 81.3 80.5 82.2 83.6

Accredited qualifications 35.7 36.3 36.1 39.3 71.4 72.7 72.4 72.6

Total 41.4 42.0 45.6 52.0 80.4 79.8 81.4 82.7

For explanatory notes see page 12.

Table 2 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Level of education Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected

2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018

Diploma or higher 36.1 43.8 56.6 63.5 72.0 71.8 77.2 80.7

Certificate IV 47.0 47.4 51.9 58.3 83.3 81.6 81.5 82.7

Certificate III 44.5 42.9 45.1 51.0 86.7 86.0 85.2 84.8

Certificate II 41.2 39.7 41.0 45.7 82.2 83.6 83.2 83.5

Certificate I 30.0 29.7 28.5 38.4 68.3 72.2 71.2 71.5

Total 41.4 42.0 45.6 52.0 80.4 79.8 81.4 82.7



Table 3 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by state/territory of delivery location for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

State/territory of delivery location

Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%)

Observed Actual Projected

2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018

Australia (onshore) 41.2 41.7 45.3 51.8 80.2 79.6 81.2 82.6

New South Wales 39.1 43.6 48.0 53.4 73.4 74.4 76.2 78.8

Victoria 41.5 37.7 41.0 48.0 80.1 80.4 80.5 80.9

Queensland 43.1 43.4 45.7 53.6 83.8 81.0 85.8 87.3

South Australia 37.6 37.9 43.6 49.8 88.4 86.1 87.2 88.6

Western Australia 42.8 44.2 48.4 52.9 85.3 84.3 83.9 84.4

Tasmania 38.3 37.4 54.9 58.4 84.2 83.6 83.6 84.8

Northern Territory 38.6 37.4 40.7 45.8 84.0 81.5 82.4 83.5

Australian Capital Territory 42.0 44.4 46.0 48.5 81.5 84.2 84.7 84.7

Other1 50.7 54.7 51.6 64.3 60.0 77.9 69.9 99.3

Offshore 67.2 76.1 73.9 82.9 94.0 94.3 93.4 94.6

Total 41.4 42.0 45.6 52.0 80.4 79.8 81.4 82.7

1 Other includes Other Australian territories and dependencies and where the state is Not known. Projected rates of completion may not be directly comparable across jurisdictions, with rates being impacted by differing jurisdictional enrolment practices and funding policies. For explanatory notes see page 12.

Table 4 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by provider type for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Provider type Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected

2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018

TAFE institutes 40.0 39.8 41.9 46.3 80.8 80.3 80.9 80.8

Universities 44.1 45.0 45.0 46.9 78.4 76.9 76.6 76.7

Schools 48.3 46.1 47.8 58.0 78.0 79.3 79.3 79.4 Community education providers 38.7 42.7 43.5 50.4 83.6 85.7 86.4 86.8

Enterprise providers 47.3 52.5 55.7 61.1 88.9 86.3 90.4 89.3

Private training providers 41.2 42.0 47.1 54.2 80.0 79.1 81.5 84.0

Total 41.4 42.0 45.6 52.0 80.4 79.8 81.4 82.7

Projected rates of completion may not be directly comparable across provider types, with rates being impacted by differing enrolment practices and mix of qualifications and cohorts. For explanatory notes see page 12.

Table 5 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by funding source for qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Funding source Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected

2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018

Government funding 46.6 45.0 46.5 51.4 83.3 83.0 83.0 83.1 Domestic fee-for-service funding 33.5 34.8 40.4 48.2 74.9 73.9 78.5 82.1

International fee-for-service funding 58.3 62.5 63.4 69.0 83.2 83.9 82.6 82.5

Total 41.4 42.0 45.6 52.0 80.4 79.8 81.4 82.7



Table 6 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for government-funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Government-funded Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected

Level of education 2015 2016 2017 2018 2015 2016 2017 2018


Certificate IV 47.4 47.2 49.5 55.7 82.4 80.4 81.9 81.9

Certificate III 50.5 47.3 50.6 55.4 86.3 86.2 85.8 85.6

Certificate II 42.9 43.0 41.8 46.3 80.8 81.5 81.2 81.3

Certificate I 36.7 34.6 33.0 37.3 68.0 70.5 68.8 69.1

Total 46.6 45.0 46.5 51.4 83.3 83.0 83.0 83.1


Table 7 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for domestic fee-for-service funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

Domestic fee-for-service Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected



Certificate IV 44.5 44.0 50.6 57.1 85.1 82.7 81.4 83.9

Certificate III 32.8 33.0 34.0 41.6 88.2 85.9 84.1 82.9

Certificate II 37.4 32.4 38.5 43.0 86.7 90.4 89.2 90.4

Certificate I 15.5 17.3 18.3 39.5 69.6 81.9 83.0 83.3

Total 33.5 34.8 40.4 48.2 74.9 73.9 78.5 82.1


Table 8 Observed actual and projected qualification completion rates and subject load pass rates by level of education for international fee-for-service funded qualifications at certificate I and above, commencing in 2015–18

International fee-for-service

Qualification completion rate (%) Subject load pass rate (%) Observed Actual Projected



Certificate IV 58.6 63.9 63.7 69.4 80.7 82.6 79.8 81.9

Certificate III 64.0 65.9 68.1 71.9 85.7 83.8 83.5 83.7

Certificate II 58.8 64.3 62.2 69.7 80.5 80.8 77.8 79.7

Certificate I 60.3 57.9 58.0 67.3 78.8 78.3 75.0 70.3

Total 58.3 62.5 63.4 69.0 83.2 83.9 82.6 82.5


NCVER 10

Terms

Information contained in this publication is, unless stated otherwise, derived from the National VET Provider Collection, which is compiled under the Australian Vocational Education and Training Management Information and Statistical Standard (AVETMISS). For further information go to .

For other terms and definitions, refer to the terms and definitions paper at .

Accredited qualifications refer to nationally recognised courses that lead to a qualification outcome not specified in a national training package.

Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) is a nationally consistent framework of credentials offered in post-compulsory education and training that covers qualifications from certificate I through to a doctoral degree. For more details on the AQF, see .

Commonwealth and state funding is expenditure by the Commonwealth or state/territory governments for the delivery of vocational education and training.

Community education providers are not-for-profit, community-based organisations with a primary focus on adult education. Community-based adult education providers deliver courses relating to leisure, personal and community development, employment skills, preparation for VET and nationally recognised programs of study.

Domestic fee-for-service funding is the revenue provided by a student whose citizenship status is Australian, New Zealand or permanent resident for the purpose of undertaking education and training.

Enrolment (program/subject) is the registration of a student for the purpose of undertaking a program or subject.

Enterprise providers are registered training organisations whose primary business is not the delivery of training and development.

Field of education describes the broad area of study related to a program or subject in which a student is enrolled.

Full-time students are students whose program of study constitutes at least 75% of the normal full-time study load. The former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) previously defined a full-time study load as 720 contact hours in a year. Therefore, any student undertaking 540 hours or more is regarded as a full-time student.

Full year training equivalent (FYTE) measures the training activity undertaken by a student on a full-time basis for one year.

Funding source refers to the predominant source of the funding for a subject enrolment.

Government funding relates to Commonwealth and state/territory funded activity delivered by registered training organisations (RTOs).

International fee-for-service funding is the revenue provided by a student who holds a student visa, or a temporary residency permit or who resides in an overseas country for the purpose of undertaking education and training.

Level of education in the VET sector refers to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) levels of education from certificate I through to graduate diploma.

Nationally recognised programs include training package qualifications, accredited qualifications, training package skill sets and accredited courses that are listed on the National Training Register (training.gov.au).

https://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/collections/students-and-courses-collection/total-vet-students-and-courseshttps://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/collections/students-and-courses-collection/total-vet-students-and-courseshttp://www.aqf.edu.au/


Nationally recognised training (NRT) leads to vocational qualifications and credentials that are recognised across Australia delivered by registered training organisations (RTOs). Nationally recognised training is listed on the National Training Register (training.gov.au).

Private training providers refer to privately-owned and operated training providers that are registered by the Australian Skills Quality Authority, or a state/territory accrediting body.

Provider type refers to the type of institution or organisation providing the training.

Projected qualification completion rate is the percentage of qualifications that are estimated to be completed, according to statistical modelling developed by NCVER.

Qualifications in the VET sector refer to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) levels of education from certificate I through to graduate diploma.

Qualification enrolment is the registration of a student at a training organisation for the purpose of undertaking a module, unit of competency or subject, which leads to or is part of a recognised qualification.

Registered training organisations (RTOs) are training providers registered by the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) or, in some cases, a state or territory registering and accrediting body, to deliver training and/or conduct assessment and issue nationally recognised qualifications in accordance with the Australian Quality Training Framework or the VET Quality Framework.

Schools are established or recognised under an Act of parliament for the purpose of providing courses of instruction in preschool, primary or secondary education.

State/territory of delivery location is the state or territory relating to the specific training location where the activity was delivered. For online delivery it must be the location from which the training delivery is coordinated.

Students are individuals who were enrolled in a stand-alone subject and/or program during the reporting period.

Subject load pass rate is a calculation of the proportion of subjects that were successfully completed, measured in hours.

Subject result refers to the result that is recorded against a student's subject enrolment for that reporting period.

Total VET activity (TVA) all nationally recognised training (incorporating both government-funded and fee-for-service activity) delivered by registered training providers.

Training packages are developed by Service Skills Organisations (formerly by Industry Skills Councils) to meet the training needs of an industry, or a group of industries. Each training package is made up of three components; units of competency, qualifications framework levels of education and assessment guidelines. For further information refer to .

Training package qualifications are nationally endorsed qualifications specified in a national training package.

Training providers are organisations that deliver VET qualifications. Training providers include private training providers, schools, community education providers, enterprise providers, TAFE institutes and universities.

Unique student identifier (USI) uniquely identifies an individual who accesses vocational education and training over his or her lifetime.

Universities include Australia’s universities, which have been established or recognised under state or territory legislation, except the Australian National University, which is constituted under an Act of the Australian Parliament.

Vocational education and training (VET) is post-compulsory education and training that provides people with occupational or work-related knowledge and skills.

NCVER 12

Explanatory notes

Scope 1 Activity covered in this publication includes nationally recognised VET delivered by registered

training organisations (RTOs):

• TAFE institutes

• universities

• community education providers • enterprise providers

• private training providers

• schools • Australian training providers delivering VET at overseas campuses.

2 This publication does not cover the following types of training: • non-nationally recognised training

• credit transfer

• superseded training (reported with national outcome identifier '61 - superseded training') • any activity where revenue was earned from another training provider in terms of sub-contracting,

auspicing, partnership or similar arrangements.

Data sources 3 The information contained in this publication is, unless otherwise stated, derived from the National

VET Provider Collection and the National VET in Schools Collection. For the National VET Provider Collection, data can be reported to NCVER directly by the training providers or via state training authorities. For the National VET in Schools Collection, data are reported directly by the boards of studies and via the state training authorities to NCVER. These collections are compiled under the Australian Vocational Education and Training Management Information Statistical Standard (AVETMISS). For further information on AVETMISS, see .

4 The National VET Provider and National VET in Schools collections collect enrolment and completion details of VET students and their qualifications. While these national databases are essentially cross-sectional by year, there is enough information to match data over a number of years for individual VET students and the qualifications they undertake. Obtaining such a longitudinal dataset allows the use of mathematical techniques that rely on conditional probabilities to then calculate projected completion rates.

Completion rates methodology 5 A VET qualification completion rate is simply defined as the proportion of VET qualifications that

commenced in a given year that are eventually completed. It requires knowledge about when a student commences a qualification and, ultimately, when a student exits (such as successfully completing or discontinuing). Unfortunately, the time taken for a student to exit a VET qualification varies, in line with factors such as Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) level and mode of study. Consequently, for any given cohort of commencing students, there is a natural time lag before qualifications are completed and, consequently, a completion rate becomes ‘final’ (reported here as Observed actual).

6 A further problem is that there is a delay in reporting completions, meaning that completions occurring in a given year might take a year or more to be reported. Not surprisingly, the longer we wait, the more accurate the completion rate becomes, although, as time goes by, the data become


less relevant, making the information less useful for performance evaluation. While the direct approach of tracking qualifications from start to finish is adequate for tracking historic observed actual rates of completion, the need remains to derive projected completion rates for the most recent years.

7 To overcome this issue, NCVER has developed a methodology for calculating projected qualification completion rates using a longitudinal dataset in which data for an individual student at a given RTO are linked from commencement to completion (outlined in The likelihood of completing a VET qualification: a model-based approach, available at ). This approach uses information about qualification enrolments over a three-year window (centred on the year of interest), together with the theory of absorbing Markov chains to derive the probability that a commencing VET qualification enrolment will eventually be completed.

8 The advantage of Markov chain theory is that the probability of an entity ‘transitioning’ from one status to another in successive time periods is not dependent on past transitions. This means we can use knowledge of the ‘status’ of qualification enrolments across successive years to predict the qualification completion rate without having the full history of all qualification enrolments. Another advantage of the methodology is that it can be readily applied to subsets of the data based on student demographics or attributes of the training. However, our methodology means that projected completion rates, particularly for the latest year of activity, are likely to be overstated due to the high proportion of continuing students in the forecast calculations.

9 In the Markov chain formula, qualifications can belong to one of four states in a given year: • commenced

• continuing, that is they commenced in the previous year and have an enrolment in the current year

• completed, that is we have a record of their completion • discontinued, that is they had an enrolment in the previous year but in the current year have

neither an enrolment nor a completion recorded.

10 Using our assumption that qualifications will be completed within four years, we look at qualifications’ progression through these four states. At the end of four years, we assume all qualifications that were not completed were discontinued such that every qualification reaches a “final” state (figure 3). The proportion of students who reach the “completed” state form the basis of our observed actual completion rates. For years where we do not yet have data, we predict students’ transition through the different states based on calculated probabilities and use this as the basis of projected completion rates.

Figure 3 Definition of the states of a VET qualification in the model used to calculate VET qualification completion rates

*At the end of four years, we assume all qualifications that were not completed were discontinued, such that every qualification reaches a “final” state.

NCVER 14

11 Projected completion rates for VET qualifications commencing in the most recent years, particularly those commencing in 2018, are overstated due to the methodology used to calculated completion rates. As time passes, projections come closer to actuals as more records reach their final state of “completed” or “discontinued”.

12 Further explanation of qualification completion rates, including recent methodological reviews can be found in the technical paper VET qualification completion rates: an evaluation of the current method (available at https://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/publications/all-publications/vet-qualification-completion-rates-an-evaluation-of-the-current-method) and Total VET qualification completion rates (available at ). The methodology used is regularly reviewed and improved.

13 Completion rates are calculated using the USI or other student and RTO attributes to link data for an individual student at a given RTO from commencement to completion. This means that when RTOs merge and their identifiers change, student enrolments cannot be matched to completions, leading to lower than expected completion rates. This publication takes account of two major TAFE structural changes:

• the 2019 TAFE New South Wales consolidation of 11 TAFE institutes into a single entity • the 2016 Western Australian TAFE restructure. The bulk of student movements in Western

Australia have been accounted for, but as the restructure involved movements between campuses, completion rates may be under-reported. NCVER is working with the Western Australian Department of Training and Workforce Development on further improvements to the methodology for future years’ publications.

Subject load pass rates methodology 14 Subject load pass rate is the ratio of hours (or full year training equivalent — FYTE) attributed to

students who gained competencies/passed assessment in an assessable module or unit of competency to all students who were assessed and either passed, failed or withdrew. The calculation is based on the annual hours (or FYTEs) for each assessable module or unit of competency and includes competencies achieved/units passed through recognition of prior learning. The subject load pass rate is calculated using the following formula based on national outcome codes:

(20 (Competency achieved/pass) + 51 (Recognition of prior learning - granted)) x100 (20 (Competency achieved/pass) + 51 (Recognition of prior learning - granted) + 30 (Competency not achieved/fail) + 40 (Withdrawn) + 41 (Incomplete due to RTO closure))

15 Further explanation of subject load pass rates, including definition and methodology, can be found in the occasional paper Lifting the lid on completion rates in the VET sector: how they are defined and derived, available at .

https://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/publications/all-publications/vet-qualification-completion-rates-an-evaluation-of-the-current-methodhttps://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/publications/all-publications/vet-qualification-completion-rates-an-evaluation-of-the-current-method

ContentsIntroductionSummaryTablesTermsExplanatory notes

Documents

National Centre for Vocational Education Research - VET ......recognised vocational education and training (VET) qualifications collected under total VET activity, that is, for qualifications