We uncovered some significant and often devastating insights into how young Australians – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds – have experienced the ‘push’ towards university.
To overcome serious shortages of workers, both highly skilled and low-skilled, the government will need to look to migration. But fostering home-grown skills is a better and more enduring solution.
While skilled migration can help fill short-term gaps, Australia needs a more sustainable, long-term approach to skills matching and development to make the most of the people who are already here.
Women enrolled in STEM courses are often more confident than men, but it hasn’t translated into career success and they are still very much a minority. More needs to be done in workplaces and schools.
Training restaurants housed inside prison walls and staffed by inmates are reducing recidivism rates and winning praise from diners overseas. Should we try them in New Zealand?
Australia loses female talent at every stage of the STEM pipeline. A program in which educators and industry work together to help women gain in-demand skills is one piece in the puzzle.
The tertiary qualifications target requires higher education providers, schools and communities to work together. But higher education can also help close the gap in the other target areas.
The pandemic has hit young people very hard. The long-term costs of having them neither studying nor working more than justify investment in a national program to help them enter the workforce.
There is a growing mismatch between what education and training provide and the skills needed in workplaces being reshaped by the digital economy. Advanced apprenticeships can help close the gap.
VET’s role in employable skill development is critical. But we also need to strongly support the role VET plays in getting disadvantaged groups into education and work.
Teacher preparation has been identified as a key factor in the quality of education. To improve the quality of the VET sector, we need to ensure teachers and trainers are qualified to teach.