4105.0 - Children and Youth News, Apr 2005  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 12/05/2005   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All

LATEST FINDINGS


SCHOOL PARTICIPATION AND RETENTION

Schools, Australia (cat. no. 4221.0) was released in February 2005. It presents statistics from the National Schools Statistics Collection on government and non-government schools, students and school staff. A selection of this information is presented. For further information see Schools, Australia (cat. no. 4221.0).

At the Australian level, the age participation rates for full-time school students in 2004 were 93.4% for 15 year olds, 82.8% for 16 year olds and 63.6% for 17 year olds, the latter rising from 59.7% in 1994.

PARTICIPATION RATES OF FULL-TIME STUDENTS AGED 17 YEARS
GRAPH - participation rates of full-time students aged 17 years by State



In 2004 the apparent retention rate of full time school students from Year 7/8 to Year 12 was 75.7% compared to 75.4% in 2003 and 74.6% in 1994. Apparent retention rates for Indigenous full time school students, from Year 7/8 to both Year 10 and Year 12, have continued to rise over the last five years - the rate to Year 10 increased from 82.0% in 1999 to 86.4% in 2004, and the rate to Year 12 increased from 34.7% to 39.5%. These Indigenous retention rates are still lower than the comparable rates for non-Indigenous students. In 2004, the rate to Year 10 for non-Indigenous school students was 98.5%, while the rate to Year 12 was 76.8%.

For information on the definition of terms see the Glossary.