The gap year data gap

The gap year needs mapping, according to research suggesting we don’t really know how many students defer – let alone how many come back. When then education minister Julia Gillard sought to change student income support arrangements last year, she cited poor return rates of ‘gap-year’ students to defend her proposals. But recent studies suggest that universities and education bureaucracies have little idea how many gap year students end up starting university. While Gillard’s Youth Allowance changes had widespread support across the sector, they were bitterly opposed by students who had deferred their studies specifically to qualify for benefits. Gillard wanted to put an immediate end to an eligibility pathway which enabled would-be students to qualify for ‘independent’ Youth Allowance by working for as little as three or four months – described as a “rort” by higher education reviewer Denise Bradley. After meeting students in August last year, Gillard agreed to postpone the plan until mid-2010 to avoid changing the rules mid-stream for those who had already started gap years. But she resisted any further postponement, questioning how many of the deferring students would make it to university anyway. “Studies show that around 30 per cent of gap year students choose not to commence their university studies,” she said, in numerous media releases. But experts suggest universities don’t really know how many students are taking gap years in the first place, let alone how many come back. Professor Andrew Martin, of the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Education and Social Work, said the gap year was a relatively understudied educational phenomenon and that there was a need for researchers to “map the gap”. Martin’s report on the motivation and performance of students who take time out after completing school, published recently in the Journal of Educational Psychology, cites estimates of between 15 and 20 percent of students considering or taking gap years. But it’s difficult to know for sure, as some school leavers don’t go through the process of formally enrolling and deferring. And Martin said his research and a 2007 University of Western Australia study had both identified a lack of data on deferred students who failed to return to university. “Do these students find better alternatives in TAFE or in employment?” both reports ask. Gillard’s claims of a 30 per cent non-return rate appear to be based on a May 2009 report which traced the activities of regional Victorians 30 months after finishing school in 2006. But the report, by Associate Professor John Polesel of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, can’t claim to be representative of Victoria let alone the rest of Australia. Polesel’s study found that in 2007, 16 per cent of regional Victorian school completers deferred – two and a half times the rate of their metropolitan counterparts. The report also found regional deferrers more likely to be from low socioeconomic backgrounds, with 83 per cent in the bottom half of socioeconomic status. Campus Review sought comment from DEEWR and the office of tertiary education minister Chris Evans. Related story Location lottery for Youth Allowance