Positive news on the growing number of students remaining at school up until Year 12 in Australia has been reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The retention rate for secondary students has risen from 79.1 per cent in 2023 to 79.9 per cent in 2024.
Jobs and Skills Australia has reported that over 90 percent of new jobs over the next decade require, at minimum, a post-secondary qualification. Staying at school for longer will help young people into further learning and careers pathways that require a senior secondary qualification and set them up for a more successful future.
Concerningly, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that school attendance and retention rates decreased during the global pandemic; however, this recent news is a positive sign that educators, parents, and governments efforts to reverse this decline are working.
There is room for more optimism, the ABS reports that the proportion of people with a Year 12 or equivalent and Certificate III level or above has steadily increased since 2014.
Importantly, for employers and policy-makers, is to ensure that young people completing and moving out of high school are either earning or learning to avoid the situation where they are completely disengaged from work and studies. The ABS reports that in 2024, around 8.5% of people aged 15-24 years were not engaged in study or employment.
Those students not in employment or education and training (NEET) rose in 2024 from the previous two years where the rate was 7.6% and 7.7% respectively, coming down from a high of 12.2% in 2020, at the peak of the global pandemic.
For further exploration on this topic and a deeper dive into this data, you might be interested in reading the Connecting the dots: Exploring young Australians' pathways from education and training into work, produced by the Centre in early 2023.
