Data for this measure come from the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training‘s Higher Education Student Statistics Collection and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research collection.
DEEWR Higher Education Student Statistics Collection
The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is the responsible agency for the Higher Education Statistics Collection, which includes information from higher education institutions such as universities and colleges of advanced education. This data collection contains statistics relating to students enrolled in higher education courses between 1 January and 31 December of each year in each Australian higher education provider. Although universities design and produce their own enrolment forms, DEEWR has provided institutions with suggested wording for questions relating to Indigenous status (ABS 2003).
Higher education data could not be provided by remoteness area because DEEWR does not collect information on where a student comes from. Postcode of home location is often used as a substitute, but it is a poor measure because many students report the campus postcode as their postcode of home location. Using this variable results in participation rates incorrectly biased towards major cities at the expense of regional and remote areas because most campuses are in major cities.
National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) collection The NCVER is Australia‘s main provider of vocational education and training (VET) sector research and statistics. VET is a national system designed to give workers the skills for particular occupations and industries. The VET sector includes providers that receive public VET funding, such as technical and further education organisations, higher education institutions, other government providers (for example, agricultural colleges), community education providers, government-funded private registered training organisations, schools funded through government allocations for VET, and all other Commonwealth and state recurrent and specific-purpose funded VET, regardless of the location of the training organisation.
