Three quarters of VET course enrolments not completed

VET completion rates are almost subterranean – but this says as much about students’ goals as it does about their persistence. Barely a quarter of VET course enrolments are completed successfully, according to new estimates from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. NCVER has estimated a completion rate of just 27 per cent for students who enrolled in certificate I and higher level courses in 2005. For certificate III enrolments – the key qualification level for the trades – the estimated completion rate was just 34 per cent. And this surpassed the estimate for any other qualification level. The estimated rate for young, full-time VET students was a little better again – but not much – at 35 per cent. Barely one in eight enrolments in mixed field programs was successfully concluded, with a completion rate of just 13 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum – education courses – the estimated completion rate was still below half, at 48 per cent. The researchers, Kevin Mark and Tom Karmel, used the “Markov chain” mathematical technique to estimate VET completion rates – a technical challenge because the VET system doesn’t currently have a unique student identifier. “The concept of commencement of a qualification is not well defined in the student system,” the researchers wrote. “For this reason, while key performance measures for the sector have included a course-completion rate, to date it has not been possible to calculate and publish such a measure.” But the findings – based on around 1.3 million course enrolments in 2005 – could come as a shock. For one jurisdiction, the Northern Territory, the overall estimated completion rate was just 11 per cent. But the researchers said that the results weren’t nearly as bad as they appeared. “The issue is that many individuals undertake particular VET modules with a view to obtaining particular skills, rather than obtaining a complete qualification,” they said. “A completion rate has a difficult interpretation when we cannot distinguish between those people for whom a competed qualification is beneficial, and those for whom particular modules are sufficient.” The researchers said a more sensible success measure for such people would be the proportion of modules passed – the “load pass rate”. The overall load pass rate for 2005 enrolments was a far more respectable 79 per cent – 84 per cent for certificate IIIs. But the researchers said completion rates shouldn’t be ignored. They advocated treating both course-completion and module-completion rates as useful indicators, and trying to identify the groups for which the course-completion rate “has particular salience”. NCVER is surveying student intentions this year to identify the groups of students for whom the qualification completion rate would be an appropriate performance indicator. Go to ncver.edu.au Related story What’s in a completion rate? Tags: VET