Higher education

The past five years have … seen significant increases in the number of people with Graduate Diplomas or Graduate Certificates as their highest level of qualification (27 per cent).

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release20

In 2017 ABS presented a media release with information about people studying throughout Australia, saying that they are the highest number of people who have upskilled in the history of Australia.

There was a 27% increase over 2011-2016 in those who studied their Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate. Political Science, Law and Economics, the Society and Culture field have increased by 29%; General Nursing, Care for the Aged and Children’s Services has increased by 133k between 2011 and 2016. 56% of people over 15 held a post-school qualification, up from 46% in 2006.

Except that the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 said that Aus tertiary fees were the fifth highest in the world, after Canada, Japan, Korea and US, and in June2017 that the UN put Aus as 39 out of 41 countries. The Educator in 2018 said that Aus’ education system is among the world’s most unequal. ABC, in December2019, said that a PISA study showed our school reading, maths and science skills as ‘declining’ since 2003. There are many other media articles which looks at the same things.

Others look at how this is happening and it seems, to me, to be profiteering byregistered organisations, rather than actual qualifications.  Or the trainer providers have simplyclosed down. The government APH report said that 45.4% of training providers “could be demonstrated to have breached the national RTO standards and/or consumer and fair trading legislation.” This report was written in 2015. If the government knows about this, then why is it still happening?

The ABS report dated 13 November 2019 looks at this. It says that education has ‘improved’ since 2004, but its graph shows non-school qualifications (eg., VETS). In 2010 the percentage of people in employment and/or study was in city 82% and rural 77%, but by 2019 that changed to 83% and 73%, drifting down for rural residents. It also included men and women – 42% of women aged 15-74 and 34% of men same age, showing a continuous increase for women.

ABC said that universities are becoming more ‘vocational’ than they used to be, and they are comparing with polytechs at higher costs – and training on apprenticeships are plummeting.

So what are these qualifications doing for people today? In Google there are many websites which look at ‘How to become a bar attendant’, or ‘How to become a paralegal’, or ‘…receptionist’ or ‘…youth worker’ or ‘…counsellor’ or ‘…traffic controller’ or anything else – except those that actually require good qualifications. And many people – too many – who have good, higher qualifications may stillnot have a job – especially a full time position.

These articles are very interesting – if you are. I recommend that you read as many of them as you can, including the OECD reports, and make a decision about your own future employment. Will your own decision lead you to ‘joy’? I hope it will.