This publication presents information on how different equity groups fare in their VET journey. The featured equity groups are: (1) People with disability; (2) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; (3) Non-English speaking background; (4) Low socioeconomic status; (5) Remote; and (6) Not employed. These groups have historically been disadvantaged…

This Report Card offers an assessment of child well-being in the context of sustainable development across 41 countries of the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Specifically, this report seeks to bring the SDG [Sustainable Development Goal] targets for children in high-income countries into…

This report presents key statistics and trends for teenage mothers and their babies in Australia. Teenage mothers and their babies are more likely to experience broader disadvantage, have antenatal risk factors and have poorer maternal and baby outcomes during and after birth, than older mothers and their babies. In Australia, the rate of teenage…

Tailoring education policy to deliver the skills needed by modern labour markets is complicated by the rapid pace of technological change. These complications are amplified when the associated risks of technological redundancy and the lengthening working lifetimes are taken into account. At the heart of the challenge for policy-makers is…

Socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students are not equally exposed to mathematics problems and concepts at school. Exposure to mathematics at school has an impact on performance, and disadvantaged students' relative lack of familiarity with mathematics partly explains their lower performance. Widening access to mathematics content…

This report supplements Jerrim (2012) where John Jerrim investigated the link between family background and children's reading tests across a series of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Previous studies for the Sutton Trust (Smithers 2012) have suggested that policy and provision for the highly able in…

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather…

Lower-level qualifications (certificate I and II programs) provide little or no immediate return to the individual in terms of increased wages. However, lower-level qualifications are intended to prepare students who would otherwise not be capable of enrolling in and completing a higher-level qualification or making a successful transition into…

Current research demonstrates relationships between child abuse and neglect, homelessness and criminal activity. This report presents key findings from analysis of a data set linking three community-sector data collections: Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP), juvenile justice supervision, and child protection notifications and…

This report sets out the latest internationally comparable data on child deprivation and relative child poverty. Taken together, these two different measures offer the best currently available picture of child poverty across the world's wealthiest nations. Previous reports in this series have shown that failure to protect children from poverty is…

In recent times social capital has received considerable attention because it is seen as having the potential to address many of the problems facing modern society, including the poor educational outcomes of considerable numbers of young people. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) to explore the…

In recent years, the level of participation and attainment by Indigenous Australians in education and training has improved, yet substantial gaps still exist between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians. Education has to be a key focus if the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment rates is to be closed. This report…

This report presents a snapshot of the academic performance of children on guardianship/custody orders from 2003 to 2006, and changes in their performance over this period. This concludes a two-stage pilot study, the first of its kind in Australia. A considerable proportion of children on guardianship/custody orders are not meeting the national…

The link between academic achievement and labour market outcomes is well established. But how well does a student's achievement in a test predict their later success in life? This study examines this question, with "success" considered to encompass satisfaction with life together with the extent to which young people are fully occupied…

The Closing the Gap Clearinghouse was established by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to bring together evidence-based research on overcoming disadvantage for Indigenous Australians. The Clearinghouse provides access to a collection of information on what works to improve Indigenous people's lives across the building blocks identified…