More Coast School-Leavers Opting for Study
22 October 2005
The State Department of Education and the Arts has just released
a report called 'The Next Step' which reports on a survey of
Queensland school leavers.
The report was designed to gain a comprehensive picture of the
employment, study and life choices made by school leavers. The
'Smart State' strategy relies for its success on the majority of
youth 'learning or earning', and that is in fact the reality.
The number of school leavers that responded was 23,650 (60 per
cent), and 90 per cent of them were either studying or in paid
employment earlier this year, within six months of leaving a range
of State, Catholic, independent schools, or a TAFE secondary
college.
About two thirds (67.5 per cent) of the cohort continued their
study in some form of education or training in the year after
leaving school.
Most of them that fell into this category combined their studies
with some form of part-time or casual employment, which points to
adjustments universities are going to have to continue to make,
especially in areas where socio-economic backgrounds suggest that
employment earnings are essential to meet the costs of study.
Most (55 per cent) of those studying were undertaking a
university degree. Most of those not studying were sales assistants
or store-persons, with next most common occupational group being
labourers or factory and machine workers for males, whilst for
females it is waiters, clerks and receptionists.
For those not studying the most common reason was 'time-out',
especially for high socio-economic background students, whilst cost
of studying was a deterrent especially for low socio-economic
background students.
Brisbane students are more likely to enter university. Female
students also, are more likely to enter university. Males
predominate in apprenticeship programs, and in engineering and
technology programs.
Of the 36.6 per cent of the cohort who went to University there
are some other clear male-female areas in the way studies are
undertaken.
Not unexpectedly the University of Queensland attracts most
school leavers (14.8 per cent) but USC (2.2 per cent) is quickly
catching up with USQ (2.9 per cent), CQU (3.1 percent) with CSIT
attracting 1 per cent of the State's school leavers.
These statistics provide a fascinating insight into the way in
which advanced societies like ours are changing and how much more
emphasis is being placed on learning and knowledge.
Thirty or forty years ago, universities were often places for
less than 5 per cent of school leavers. Now, Queensland is
attracting 36 per cent of school leavers into its larger number of
universities, and is still well behind some states in the US which
attract even larger numbers, to populate the growing number of
places in industries that rely on knowledge.
It is really pleasing to me to see the Sunshine Coast's students
proportionately rivalling the Gold Coast and Brisbane in
progressing to universities, and increasingly, this University.
This is a dramatically different picture to the one that existed in
the mid-1990s when university access was open to a much smaller
proportion of Sunshine Coast school leavers.
It will be interesting to monitor the annual and longitudinal
surveys that will follow this one, to see whether the Coast
students continue to improve their life chances through
education.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast