Vocational education’s variable links to vocations

Abstract

This report and the accompanying support document are part of a three-year project entitled Vocations: the link between post-compulsory education and the labour market. The investigation is being conducted in three strands over three stages. This report considers the roles that tertiary education qualifications, in particular mid-level qualifications, play in assisting their graduates to gain entry to and progression in work and how they may be strengthened. Statistical data from the 2011 Student Outcomes Survey, conducted by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Surveys of Education and Work from 1998 to 2012 are used in this investigation. The report explores how the role of qualifications may be strengthened by examining four cases in which tertiary institutions have introduced new qualifications to meet a new or emerging work role.