2901.0 - Census Dictionary, 2006 (Reissue)  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 13/07/2007  Reissue
   Page tools: Print Print Page  
Contents >> Short Definitions and Classifications - 2006 >> Type of Educational Institution Attending (TYPP) - Characteristics 2006

Type of Educational Institution Attending

On this page:
Description
Image of Question
Classification
Quality Statement


Description

This variable records the type of educational institution being attended by people who are full/part-time students. The categories cover pre-school through to tertiary institutions. More Detailed Description


Image of Question

2006 Household Form - Question 25

Classification

Applicable to: Persons attending an educational institution

10. Pre-school
21. Infants/Primary-Government
22. Infants/Primary -Catholic
23. Infants/Primary -Other Non Government
31. Secondary-Government
32. Secondary -Catholic
33. Secondary- Other Non Government
40. Technical or Further Educational Institution (including TAFE Colleges)
50. University or other Tertiary Institutions
60. Other
&& Not stated
@@ Not applicable
VV Overseas visitor

Total number of categories: 13

More Detailed Description
Quality Statement - Type of Educational Institution Attending (TYPP)

There are many aspects which can affect the quality of Census data; the following information should be considered when viewing data on Type of Educational Institution Attending (TYPP).

This data was captured automatically from check box responses on the form so the risk of processing error is minimal. Sample checks of the data are undertaken to ensure an acceptable level of quality.

Table 1 provides proportions of responses to TYPP as they relate to the Full-Time/Part-Time Student Status question (STUP), which is question 25 on the household form. STUP is the question which asks 'Is the person attending a school or any other educational institution?' and provides the following response options: 'No', 'Yes, full-time student' and 'Yes, part-time student'. Respondents who mark the 'No' option are sequenced past TYPP.

As can be seen by Table 1, response rates for TYPP include a small proportion of people (0.3% in 2006 and 0.2% in 2001) who did not indicate whether they were students at the Full/Part Time Student Status (STUP) question but went on to state the type of educational institution attended at the next question, TYPP. The majority of these (70.2% in 2006 and 80.1% in 2001) were aged under 20 years of age. Children aged under 15 years comprised 58.3% and 70.9% of the population who did not indicate whether they were students at the Full/Part Time Student Status (STUP) question but went on to state the type of educational institution attended for the 2006 and 2001 Censuses, respectively.

A large component of non-response for TYPP is due to people answering neither the STUP nor the TYPP questions, including people who may not have seen these questions as relevant to themselves and those people who were imputed into occupied dwellings from which no form had been returned. However, as it may not be appropriate to consider these groups of non-respondents when calculating non-response for the directly applicable population, further analysis was undertaken so that non-response could be considered only in relation to those people who were applicable, that is those who would be expected to answer the further qualification questions if they had followed the sequencing at STUP. For example, respondents who had indicated at STUP that they were either a full-time or part-time student (see Table 2 for further non-response analysis).



Table 1: Response/Non-Response derivation for STUP by TYPP, 2006 Census
STUP
TYPP
'000
%
Stated ('Yes' response)a
Stated
4,522.2
22.8
Not stated
212.5
1.6
Stated ('No' response)b
Not applicablec
13,633.8
68.7
Not Stated
Stated
59.0
0.3
Not stated
650.5
3.3
Non-response due to people being imputed into dwellingsd
777.3
3.9
Total Population:
19,855.3
100%
a 'Yes' responses only, indicating that the person was either a full-time or part-time student.
b 'No' responses only, indicating that the person was not a student.
c This figure includes 29,812 children aged 2 years or under who imputed into dwellings
and had their response for STUP set to 'No' due to general edits for this age group.
d Does not include imputed persons aged 2 years or under, see footnote 'c'.



As can be seen in Table 2, the non-response rate for TYPP was 4.5% for the 2006 Census. This compares with 3.1% for 2001. However these rates only apply to persons who stated at STUP that they were a full-time or part-time student.


Table 2: Response/Non-Response derivation for STUP by TYPP, 2006 Census,
population who indicted that they were a full-time or part-time student at STUP
STUP
TYPP
No.
%
Stated ('Yes' response)a
Stated
4,522.2
95.5
Not stated
212.5
4.5
(non response rate)
Total
4,734.8
100
a 'Yes' responses only, indicating that the person had completed an educational qualification.


In a small proportion of cases (testing has indicated that this is less than 4%), respondents provide an incorrect number of responses (for TYPP, respondents are asked to only mark one response). In these cases responses are accepted in the order they appear on the form and the extra responses are rejected.

One area where there may be variations between State/Territories is proportions of children aged 4 and 5 years between the 'Pre-school' and 'Infants/primary school' categories. This may be due to differences in the meaning of 'Pre-school' between state/territories. While the Census question is based on the assumption that 'Pre-school' is a type of educational institution which precedes 'Infants / primary' and is attended two years prior to Year 1, there are some state/territories where this early educational institution is referred to as 'Kindergarten' (or another name) rather than 'Pre-school'. Please note that the analyses do not include 3 or 6 year olds, as both of these ages have edits performed during processing which set any responses of 'Infants/primary' (for 3 year olds) and 'Pre-school' (for 6 year olds) to 'Not stated'.

Figure 1: Proportions of 4 year olds attending Pre-school and Infants/Primary by State/Territory
Figure 1: Proportions of 4 year olds attending Pre-school and Infants/Primary by State/Territory


Figure 2: Proportions of 5 year olds attending Pre-school and Infants/Primary by State/Territory
Figure 2: Proportions of 5 year olds attending Pre-school and Infants/Primary by State/Territory

As is seen by Figure 1 and Figure 2, there are variations between State/Territories regarding the type of educational institutions attended by 4 and 5 year olds. The widest variations for 4 year olds occurred in Western Australia and Tasmania, both of which use the term 'Kindergarten' rather than 'Pre-school' to refer to the type of educational institution attended two years prior to Year 1.

The largest variations for 5 year olds occurred in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria. Each of these States use terms similar to 'Pre-school' to refer to the year of schooling attended prior to Year 1 ('Preparatory' for Qld and Victoria, and 'Pre-primary' for WA). While Tasmania also uses the term 'Preparatory', there are some differences in age cut-offs for enrolment (must have turned five by 1 January for Tasmania as opposed to later in the year for other State/Territories). Consequently, a larger proportion of children in Tasmania would be expected to have had their sixth birthday prior to Census Night. As any children who were aged 6 years on Census Night and who marked 'Pre-school' had their response reset as 'Not stated' during edits, further investigation is not possible.

Another area where there may be differences between State/Territories also reflects variations in terminology. An assumption behind the Type of Educational Institution Attended (TYPP) question is that the 'Secondary school' category will encompass secondary students up to Year 12 in all Australia wide. However, some State/Territories differentiate between secondary schools (Years 7/8 through to 10) and senior secondary colleges (Years 11 and 12). The latter are informally known as 'colleges'. For the 2001 Census, an issue with students in Years 11 and 12 within senior secondary 'colleges' being included by respondents within the 'tertiary college' category rather than 'secondary school' category was identified. This particularly affected school attendance data for Tasmania in comparison with data on school attendance data collected through the 2001 National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC).

To address this issue, an instruction was added to the Type of Educational Institution Attended (TYPP) question for the 2006 Census which stated: 'Include secondary colleges and senior high schools in the 'Secondary school' category'. The effectiveness of this instruction can be investigated through comparisons of 2001 and 2006 Census data with data from the 2006 National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC). Comparative data are included in Table 3 for respondents aged 15 -17 years only. It may be expected that, while 15 year olds will generally still be in secondary school Australia-wide, a large proportion of 16 and 17 year olds students may be attending senior secondary 'colleges' if this type of institution is relevant to their State/Territory, such as within Tasmania. There are a range of differences in the scope, coverage, timing, and collection methodologies of the two collections, and these are the major contributors to the differences in the counts in the table. The age reference periods for the two collections are early August (Census) and 1 July (NSSC). It should be noted that NSSC figures are generally higher as Census data is unadjusted for underenumeration and only includes those usual residents present in Australia on Census Night.

Data for people aged between 15 and 17 years from the 2001 and 2006 Censuses, as well as the 2006 NSSC, is presented in Table 3. To enable better comparison across the collections, non-response in Census data for TYPP has been removed from the analysis. For further consistency with the NSSC, the population of Census respondents was restricted to include only people for whom age was stated, rather than imputed.


Table 3: Proportion of Students (Full-Time plus Part-Time) attending Secondary School by Age (15,16 and 17 years) by
State/Territory of usual residence, 2001 Census, 2006 Census and 2006 National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC).
% Attending Secondary School
NSW
Vic
Qld
SA
WA
Tasc
NT
ACT
Australia
15 year olds:
2001 Censusa
94.2
95.0
92.4
93.7
91.1
96.5
82.0
97.1
93.7
2006 Censusa
95.1
95.5
93.0
96.3
92.1
96.5
84.0
97.3
94.5
2006 NSSC
93.6
96.3
92.6
96.4
95.6
98.9
84.6
110.2d
93.9
16 year olds:
2001 Censusa
81.5
88.3
82.6
85.2
75.9
59.2
63.4
89.0
83.4
2006 Censusa
82.7
89.3
82.7
87.7
78.3
75.8
67.2
89.4
84.0
2006 NSSC
80.2
90.2
82.6
88.5
80.3
87.6
72.8
102.7d
80.9
17 year olds:
2001 Censusa
69.9
77.6
56.8
67.8
45.4
45.7
46.0
78.7
65.8
2006 Censusa
71.9
78.4
55.3
71.5
47.0
47.0
47.8
79.4
66.9
2006 NSSC
68.2
78.2
49.3
69.9
41.3b
67.7
51.2
90.6d
60.6
a Census figures exclude non-response and any person for whom age was imputed.
b From 2003, the majority of students in a small number of WA colleges were no longer in the scope of the NSSC and were classified as belonging to the vocational education and training sector. The
removal of these students has affected a number of series.
c Changes in the admissions policy for Tasmanian schools in 1993 resulted in an upward change in the profile of students commencing in that year, and in subsequent years, relative to the years prior to 1993. The changed age profile moved progressively through the grades, and will impact on comparisons between the years 2001 and 2006.
d Some NSSC figures for ACT exceed 100%, largely as a result of NSW residents from surrounding areas enrolling in ACT schools.


As is evident in Table 3, proportions of school attendance for the majority of states and territories are fairly consistent for 15-17 year olds between the 2001 and 2006 Censuses and with 2006 NSSC data. However, there remain discrepancies in the rates of school participation for 16 year olds and 17 year olds in Tasmania. While there has been an increase in school participation for 16 year olds in Tasmania between the 2001 Census (59.2%) and 2006 Census (75.8%), there remains an increase of 11.8% in comparison with the 2006 NSSC (87.6%) for this age year. When looking at comparisons between school participation data between the years 2001 and 2006, it is important to consider changes in the admissions policy for Tasmania which were introduced in 1993. These changes resulted in an upward change in the age profile of students commencing school in Tasmania in that year, and in subsequent years, relative to the years prior to 1993. The changed age profile moved progressively through the grades, and has impacted on comparisons between the years 2001 and 2006. Due to this change, it can be expected that a larger proportion of students aged 16 years would be attending secondary schools in Tasmania in July/August 2006, rather than senior secondary 'colleges', in comparison with July/August 2001. The proportions of 17 year olds in Tasmania attending school in the 2001 Census (45.7%) and 2006 Census (47%) are consistent, and remain over 20% lower than the proportion of this age year reported as attending school in the 2006 NSSC (67.7%).

Other possible minor influences on data quality for Type of Educational Institution Attended (TYPP) include:
  • responses by people who attend more than one type of institution (note that the way in which people in this situation respond will depend on their perception of whether the question requires either a response indicating the type of educational institution attended most often or a response indicating the more advanced, or 'higher', type of educational institution). In cases where more than one response is marked, the response higher on the list will be taken. In the case of Type of Educational Institution Attended (TYPP), institutions are ordered from lowest (pre-school) to highest (tertiary), so the lower level institution will have priority for coding.
  • partial response (i.e. not responding to the Full-time/Part-time Student Status (STUP) question blank and marking the type of educational institution attended) from people who either did not understand the question (eg. assumed it referred to the type of educational institution previously attended) or who attended educational institutions in a capacity other than as a student. For the 2006 Census, approximately half (48.7%) of people who answered the 'Secondary school' category in the Type of Educational Institution Attended (TYPP) question, and left the Full-time/Part-time Student Status (STUP) question blank, were aged 25 years or over. Of these, 38.2% indicated a language other than English as their main language spoken at home.

Additional sources of information regarding type of educational institution attended can be found in other ABS publications and associated collections, including:
  • Education and Work, Australia (ABS Cat. No. 6227.0, various years), which presents information from the Survey of Education and Work about the educational experience of people aged 15-64 years, especially in relation to their labour force status
  • Education and Training Experience, Australia (ABS Cat. No. 6278.0, various years), which presents information from the Survey of Education and Training about the education and training experiences of people aged 15-69 years
  • Schools, Australia (ABS Cat. No. 4221.0, various years), which presents statistics from the National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC), covering students attending government and non-government schools

Note that the Survey of Education and Work and the Survey of Education and Training generally do not have non-response in the Type of Educational Institution Attending question due to using an interviewer based collection methodology.

The ABS aims to produce high quality data from the Census. To achieve this, extensive effort is put into Census form design, collection procedures, and processing procedures. More details regarding these efforts can be found in:
All are available from the ABS Website.




Previous PageNext Page