Second-chance vocational education and training

The vocational education and training (VET) sector has a reputation for providing individuals with a ‘second chance’. The purpose of this report is to critically examine this perception. Our approach is to define prospective second-chance students as early school leavers aged 24 years and below and adults aged 25 years and over who have not completed a non-school qualification. Due to the lack of longitudinal data, we can only estimate the role and impact of VET in providing individuals with a second chance in education.

The findings suggest that:

• The reputation of the VET sector as the ‘second chance’ sector is fully justified.
  • The percentage of VET students who can be characterised as second chance is very substantial—second-chance students represented 41% of the VET student population in 2004.
  • The percentage of the eligible second-chance population who undertakes VET is also very substantial—around 50% of early school leavers and the vast majority of eligible adults over the age of 25 years participates in second-chance VET.
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• Despite the fact that VET provides this opportunity to many prospective second-chance students, the percentage of second-chance students leaving the sector with a qualification is low. The percentage is particularly low when restricted to certificate III or higher VET qualifications.
  • Just over 10% of early school leavers complete a certificate III or higher VET qualification within four years of leaving school.
• • 10 to 30% ¹ of adults eligible for a second chance in education will complete a certificate III or higher VET qualification (at least up to the age of 49 years).

¹ The estimate varies depending on the methodology undertaken.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which vocational education and training (VET) is providing individuals with a second chance in education. By ‘second chance’ we are referring to opportunities in education taken by individuals who have not followed the conventional academic pathway of school completion followed by post-school study.

Our approach is to look at two groups. The first group consists of young early school leavers up to (and including) 24 years who have not completed a non-school qualification. The second group consists of adults aged 25 years and over who have not completed a non-school qualification.

The paper examines three research questions.

• How important is second-chance education within the VET sector?

• What proportion of the relevant population avails themselves of the opportunity?

• What are the outcomes of those who do undertake second-chance education?

Various data sets are analysed—the National VET Provider Collection, the National Apprentice and Trainee Collection, both maintained by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Survey of Education and Training. Each data set has its own shortcomings. The shortcomings include a mixture of data-quality issues, data-scope limitations and limited information on individuals’ educational histories. Due to these shortcomings, we are unable to provide precise answers to the research questions.

The first section of the paper involves estimating how many students enrolled in VET are second-chance students in a given year.

The second section of the paper focuses on the extent to which the eligible second-chance population participates in VET. Two approaches are undertaken. The first involves calculating the percentage of the eligible second-chance population who participated in VET in 2001. However, this only provides an indication of the proportion participating in VET in one year. The ideal approach would be to track a group of prospective second-chance students throughout their lifetime. However, we are restricted by the lack of longitudinal survey data and the lack of unique student identifiers in the National VET Provider Collection. In the absence of this ‘ideal’ data, we adopt a life table approach to estimate the extent of participation in VET amongst individuals eligible for a second chance.

The final issue looks at completion rates amongst the second-chance population. The number of qualifications completed by second-chance students is briefly discussed. Subsequently, the extent to which eligible second-chance students complete a VET qualification, and the subset of a certificate III to advanced diploma qualification, are estimated using a life table approach.

Despite the data-quality issues and limitations, we draw some fairly clear conclusions.

• The percentage of VET students who can be characterised as second chance is very substantial.
  • Second-chance students represented 41% of publicly funded VET students in 2004.
• Second-chance students enrolled in VET are less likely to undertake higher-level qualifications (certificate IV and higher) compared with other students enrolled in VET.

• The percentage of the eligible second-chance population who undertakes VET is very high.
  • Estimates suggest that around 50% of early school leavers access VET within four years of leaving school.
  • Estimates suggest that the overwhelming majority of eligible adults will access second-chance VET at some stage during their lives between the ages of 25 and 49 years (over three-quarters of the eligible population).
  • Females access second-chance VET at higher rates than males.
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• The percentage of the second-chance population actually completing an award is low, and is particularly low when we focus on the completion of VET qualifications at certificate III or higher.
  • Our estimate suggests that 11% of male and 12% of female early school leavers complete a certificate III or higher VET qualification within four years of leaving school.
  • Depending on the methodology adopted, our estimates indicate that between 10 and 30% of adults eligible for second-chance VET will complete a certificate III or higher VET qualification (at least up to the age of 49 years).

We conclude that VET is living up to its reputation as providing early school leavers and adults with a second chance in education. The main issue to arise from the study concerns qualification completion—few who access second-chance VET actually complete a qualification (especially at the certificate III or higher level). However, it is worth noting that many people accessing second-chance VET are currently studying, and by definition have not yet had a chance to complete their course. For those who simply left the system prior to course completion, the failure to complete a qualification does not appear to be associated with the course being too difficult; rather, it appears to be more likely that the VET course was not what people expected, or that there was a lack of motivation or interest in continuing in the course.