VET data bodes badly for targets

COAG has vowed to lift its game, with improvements in VET performance between 2009 and 2020. But new data reveals the magnitude of the improvements required.

VET will have to improve its performance markedly to meet the COAG targets, the latest data from the Productivity Commission suggests. In late 2008, COAG agreed to strive to halve the proportion of Australians aged 20 to 64 without qualifications at certificate III and above, and double the number of diploma and advanced diploma completions, between 2009 and 2020. But figures from the Productivity Commission's 15th 'Report on government services', released in January, show that diploma completions were heading in the wrong direction in the lead-up to the targets' start date. Diploma and...