The government has tapped the vocational education and training (VET) sector to close tech and cyber security skills gaps – but with new figures showing more ICT students are failing subjects and fewer are completing their courses, success is still proving elusive.
Just 46.7 per cent of students undertaking ICT-related courses in 2019 had completed them by 2023, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER)’s newly released VET Qualification Completion Rates 2023 study found.
That ranked ICT completions eighth out of 11 industries studied in the report.
It found ICT completions slightly less than the completion rate for the previous year’s ICT cohort and below the overall completion rate of 47.3 per cent across all fields.
More students completed courses in natural and physical sciences (65 per cent), education (60.8 per cent), society and culture (54.4 per cent) and health (54.1 per cent) – while agriculture, engineering, architecture and hospitality saw fewer students finish.
NCVER identified wide variations between states, with 61.5 per cent of Queensland VET students likely to finish their ICT courses once started – ahead of Tasmania (55.8 per cent), WA (47.5 per cent), NSW (45 per cent), and the ACT (43.1 per cent).
By contrast, just 35.4 per cent of VET students in Victoria – which loudly proclaims itself as the ‘education state’ – had completed ICT courses within four years after commencing them, while just 3 in 10 SA and NT students did the same.
Weighing the pandemic’s effects
The figures reflect ongoing changes in the nature and composition of the VET sector, which last year saw apprenticeship and trainee completion rates decline despite the number of students in standalone subjects surging to a five-year high of 3.5 million.
A further 2.1 million pursued specific qualifications and 200,000 undertook VET short courses, although these figures remained mostly steady from 2019, even as the number of students participating in VET in Schools programs grew to over 252,000.
And while low, NCVER found that four-year completion rates were higher overall than in previous years despite the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic – with students blaming changing jobs, personal circumstances, and training that does not meet expectations.
Yet the pandemic did correlate with a significant drop in subject pass rates for students in ICT related courses – which fell from 76.7 per cent in 2019 to 71.4 per cent in 2020, then dipped to 68.5 per cent in 2022 before recovering slightly in 2023, to 69.1 per cent.
That gave ICT courses the lowest pass rate of any of the eleven industries NCVER analysed – well behind the overall average of 82.7 per cent, suggesting either that students are unprepared for ICT course content, or that the training itself is failing.
Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles remained sanguine despite the results, arguing that overall completions were up and that the government’s renewed focus on the VET sector was producing “green shoots… after a decade of [Coalition] neglect.”
“Every person studying in our VET system has their own story and their own unique circumstances,” he said, “that means they’re looking for different outcomes when they enrol.”
ICT students struggling more than most
NCVER tracks VET qualifications delivered across a range of registered training organisations (RTOs) including TAFE institutes, universities, community education providers, enterprise providers, private training providers, and schools.
Its finding that these institutions’ collective teaching might is still failing to engage over half of ICT students highlights the ongoing challenges facing an industry which, despite some positive signs, is struggling to reskill enough workers to meet its requirements.
Despite the government’s $12.6 billion investment to overhaul tertiary education and use VET pathways to boost tech job gaps, low completion rates and falling subject pass rates suggest systemic problems will continue to hit Australia’s ICT skills pipeline.
VET students who do complete courses report positive outcomes, with two-thirds saying that their training gave them an “improved employment outcome” – but with fewer than half of ICT students completing, stakeholders’ work is cut out for them.
Stubbornly low numbers in skills-hungry industries like cyber security – exacerbated by gender disparity and perceptions that ICT jobs require formal tertiary education – have challenged industry and training bodies to revamp work and study and other programs.
Early in October, the federal government released a formal VET Workforce Blueprint that laid out plans to address issues identified in the recent Jobs and Skills Australia VET Workforce Study.
The government’s aim, Giles told a recent industry luncheon, is “about trying to identify the barriers, whether they are personal or structural, that are preventing Australians from acquiring these qualifications.”
Those qualifications, he added, “are fundamental to them securing the life they want for themselves but also absolutely vital for us to meet our national economic goals.”
The ACS Australia’s Digital Pulse 2024 report found that just 10 per cent of school-aged students are interested in technology careers.
