Welcome

Welcome to the latest edition of the Education and Training newsletter. Since the previous newsletter we have released a number of publications, including new reports on early childhood education, schooling, child care and learning and work. The first two reports are based on student enrolment and attendance data. The third and fourth are based on surveys. Along with other areas in the ABS, we are continuing to explore ways in which administration and population data might be combined or integrated to enrich Australia's information resources.

In 2012 we released the first issue of Learning and Work, a new survey that collects information on all qualifications held by respondents including their assessment about the relevance of each qualification to their current job. This four-yearly survey will replace some of the information previously available from the Survey of Education and Training which has been discontinued.

Since the last issue two interesting articles on education have been released in Australian Social Trends. The first of these looks at government and non-government schools and the second examines trends in international students studying in Australia.

We have released two technical papers about the quality of data used for national performance reporting. One of these presents a methodology for data pooling. Data pooling is a statistical technique for combining data from different surveys to create an enlarged sample. The paper examines the improvements in accuracy that could be gained from this technique. It finds that while data pooling is a cost effective method for increasing sample size, the gains in accuracy, especially for detecting change over time, are modest.

The other technical paper examines how to use Census data to calculate two national performance measures used for Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reporting. The findings about the use of missing data (or not stated records) confirm the current approach and have wider applicability to estimation based on Census data.

Check out the new Archive!

Looking for statistics on education and training? We have created and will maintain a comprehensive Archive of ABS reports and statistics on Education and Training Topics @ a Glance.