VET News

A Welcome Student Increase in Funded Short Courses

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacting upon face-to-face course enrolments in 2020, VET practitioners expected to see an overall decline in the number of students reported.  It has been pleasing to see that, despite the impact both on type of learning and the ability to pay for it, the availability of government funding has seen learners take up these initiatives and opportunities to complete short courses.

A total of 3.9 million students enrolled in nationally recognised vocational education and training (VET) in 2020, a decline of 6.4% compared with 2019, according to new data released by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER).

Total VET students and courses 2020 reports the number of students and total enrolments in nationally recognised VET on a government-funded or fee-for-service basis, noting many students enrol in more than one type of training.

The data show the number of fee-for-service students in Australia (domestically) dropped by 10.4% and the number of international students decreased by 1.2%.

The NCVER's Managing Director, Simon Walker said  "The data clearly shows that COVID-19 had an impact on training participation in 2020, particularly the domestic fee-for-service market, which has been offset to some degree by an increase in government-funded students."

The number of students enrolled in government-funded training increased by 4.3% to 1.3 million, with increases in the number of students enrolled in nationally recognised programs up by 0.9% to 1.2 million and in stand-alone subjects up by 32.5% to 175 300 (reported as subjects not delivered as part of a nationally recognised program).

"It is likely the initiatives governments implemented last year have had a positive impact on the take up of government-funded training. " Mr Walker continued. "The data shows the increase in government-funded enrolments has been driven by enrolments in shorter forms of training, such as skill sets and stand-alone subjects."

Overall, over one in five (21.7%) working-aged Australians undertook nationally recognised training in 2020. Participation of young people was particularly strong, with participation highest for students aged 15 to 19 years old (41.2%), followed by those aged 20 to 24 years (30.6%).

The highest number of qualification enrolments were at certificate III level (39.2%), followed by certificate II (19.7%) and certificate IV (19.0%).

NCVER will soon publish a report exploring the increase in online delivery that occurred during 2020. Early results indicate online learning grew substantially last year in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

See NCVER's media release here.

Date posted Aug 26, 2021