The proportion of people who are employed casually has been stable over the last 15 years at around 20% of the working-age population. For most, casual employment is a relatively temporary state. There are some, though, for whom casual employment is a more enduring state. Does undertaking work-related training help those who are casually employed…

Although skill shortages are often portrayed as a significant problem for the Australian economy, there is surprisingly little evidence about their prevalence, causes and consequences. It is difficult to find robust evidence about where skill shortages occur, why they occur, what businesses try to do about them and whether their responses are…

The relationship between ageing and skills is becoming an important policy issue, not least in the context of population ageing. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will potentially add considerably to the understanding of the relationship between ageing and foundation skills. In particular, the…

While Alberta enjoys proven high, world-class results in student achievement, raising high school completion rates is one of the top priorities in improving the provincial education system. The 2011-12 targeted high school completion rate is 82% five years after entering Grade 10--a 2.5% increase from the current average rate of 79.5%. The purpose…

This is the final report of the National Evaluation of Student Support Services (SSS). SSS is one of eight federally funded grant programs that are administered as part of the Federal TRIO Programs within the U.S. Department of Education (ED). The SSS program, in particular, focuses on students while they are enrolled in college. In general, SSS…

The purpose of this paper is to capture and profile postsecondary education dropouts from three different types of postsecondary education--university, college and other types of institutions. It compares them with graduates from these three types of institutions. The analysis for this report is based on data from the Youth in Transition Survey…

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,…

This support document accompanies the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) report "From School to Work: The Role of Traineeships" (ED493902). It contains a comprehensive review of the literature referred to in that report and detailed descriptions and results of the econometric modeling upon which the findings are…

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…

This report examines variations in school and classroom attributes that were associated with improved student achievement outcomes. Of particular interest were those attributes of Chapter 1 and regular school programs that contributed to improved outcomes for educationally at-risk students. A secondary focus was to measure the relationships…

Over the past 15 years a body of research has investigated organizational transitions in adolescent development. Researchers studying school transitions exclusively ask whether significant transition affects students' social and psychological development. To test the presence of transition effects, researchers have typically observed mean…

The labor market outcomes of non-college-bound high school graduates were examined by analyzing the 1980 High School and Beyond Fourth Follow-up Survey, which contains information on more than 14,000 former high school students who were interviewed in 1980 as sophomores and again in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1992. The study concentrated on respondents…

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) is a large-scale, national longitudinal study designed and sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), with support from other government agencies. Beginning in the spring of 1988 with a cohort of eighth graders (25,000) attending public and private schools across…

Data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) were analyzed to assess the viability of using the LSAY study data for national reporting of outcomes by geographic location and to identify variations in young Australians' education participation and outcomes by geographic region. The analysis revealed several sample distribution…

This report draws on the Youth in Transition surveys to present educational participation rates for various categories of Australian youth. The focus is on how educational experiences differ among the categories and on the way in which such differences may have changed over time. Chapter 2 describes the way in which educational participation of…