6278.0 - Education and Training Experience, Australia, 2001

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/05/2002

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Explanatory Notes Glossary Data Cubes (List of Tables (I-Note) Reliability of Estimates (Technical Note) Standard Errors (Technical Note) Data Source	Age standardisation Age standardisation is used in this publication to allow the comparison of populations (in this case, States) with different age structures. A standard age composition is used, in this case the age composition of the estimated resident population of Australia at 30 June 2001. The age standardised rate is that which would have prevailed should the actual population have the standard age composition. Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) The ASCED is a new national standard classification which includes all sectors of the Australian education system, that is, schools, vocational education and training, and higher education. From 2001, ASCED replaced a number of classifications used in administrative and statistical systems, including the ABS Classification of Qualifications (ABSCQ). The ASCED comprises two classifications: Level of Education and Field of Education. See Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED), 2001 (Cat. no. 1272.0). Average usual weekly earnings Usual weekly earnings is the amount of weekly pay usually earned while working as a wage or salary earner, before taxation or other deductions are made. Annual, monthly or fortnightly amounts were converted to their weekly equivalent. If the person had more than one wage or salary earner job, then the one in which the person usually worked the most hours was used to calculate usual weekly earnings. Average usual weekly earnings was calculated by dividing the total usual weekly earnings for a particular population by the number of people in that population. Certificate not further defined Survey responses were coded to Certificate not further defined (n.f.d.) when there was not enough information to code them to Certificate I, II III or IV in the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) Level of Education classification. Dependent student A natural, adopted, step, or foster child who was 15 to 24 years of age and who attended a secondary or tertiary educational institution as a full-time student and who had no partner or child of his or her own usually resident in the same household. Disability For the purposes of this survey, someone was said to have a disability if he/she reported a limitation, restriction or impairment, which lasted, or was likely to last, for at least six months, and which restricted everyday activities. Employed People who reported that they had worked in a job, business or farm during the reference week (the full week prior to the date of interview); or that they had a job in the reference week but were not at work. This definition differs slightly from that given in Labour Force, Australia (Cat. no. 6203.0). See paragraph 40 of the Explanatory Notes for details. External training course Work-related training courses that were mainly attended by people not working for the person's employer or business at the time of training. Training courses completed while not working were also considered to be external. Field of education Field of Education is defined as the subject matter of an educational activity. It is categorised according to the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) Field of Education classification. Field of training Field of training is defined as the subject matter of a training course. It was classified by the respondent, according to the content of the training course undertaken. The respondent was asked to choose the main field of training from a list of 16 options provided on a prompt card. Financial support People who completed at least one work-related training course during the 12 months prior to interview, and those who were enrolled in a course of non-school study during 2001, were asked if they had received financial support from one or more of the following sources in relation to their training and/or study: an employer; the government; family members; union or professional organisation; and/or other source. Those who received employer financial support were asked if their employer had: provided paid time off or study leave; paid for HECS; paid for fees; paid for study or training materials; paid accommodation or travel expenses; and/or provided other financial support. Future study intentions Respondents were asked whether they intended to enrol to study for an educational qualification in Australia in the next three years, i.e. up until the end of 2004. This intended study referred to new enrolments, not the completion of any current study. Where study for more than one qualification was intended, details were only collected about the first. Highest educational attainment Highest educational attainment identifies the highest achievement a person has attained in any area of study. It is not a measurement of the relative importance of different fields of study, but a ranking of qualifications and other educational attainments regardless of the particular area of study or the type of institution at which the study was undertaken. See paragraphs 29 to 31 of the Explanatory Notes for how highest educational attainment is derived. Indigenous status 'Indigenous' refers to people who identify as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. Industry For people who worked as a wage or salary earner, it was the industry of their employer. For those who worked in their own business, it was the industry of that business. An industry is a grouping of businesses which carry out similar economic activities. Each such grouping defines an industry, and the economic activities which characterise the businesses concerned are referred to as activities primary to that industry. Industry was classified according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 1993 (Cat. no. 1292.0). Internal training course Work-related training courses that were mainly attended by people working for the person's employer or business at the time of training. In the labour force People who, during the reference week, were employed or unemployed, as defined. Leave entitlements Wage or salary earners were asked whether they were entitled to paid holiday leave and/or paid sick leave with their employer. Entitlement to paid holiday and/or sick leave is sometimes used as a proxy for determining the permanent or casual status of workers. Level (and field) not determined Level (and field) not determined includes inadequately described responses and cases where no response was given. Level of education Level of education is a function of the quality and quantity of learning involved in an educational activity. It is categorised according to the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) Level of Education classification. Main period employer The employer for whom a person worked the most weeks for wages or salary in the 12 months prior to interview. The main period employer may not be their current employer. Marginally attached to the labour force People who were not in the labour force in the reference week, wanted to work and: were actively looking for work but did not meet the availability criteria to be classified as unemployed; or were not actively looking for work but were available to start work within four weeks or could start work within four weeks if child care was available. Multi-response categories For some questions, respondents were asked to nominate as many of the listed categories as were applicable to them. Note that subtotals of multi-response categories relate to the number of people giving responses, not the number of responses given. Consequently, the sum of individual multi-response categories may be greater than the number of people. Non-school qualifications Non-school qualifications are awarded for educational attainments other than those of pre-primary, primary or secondary education. They include qualifications at the Postgraduate Degree Level, Master Degree Level, Graduate Diploma and Graduate Certificate Level, Bachelor Degree Level, Advanced Diploma and Diploma Level, and Certificates I, II, III and IV levels. Non-school qualifications may be attained concurrently with school qualifications. Respondents were asked how many qualifications they had completed. Detailed questions were then asked about the three highest qualifications. This means that the tables in this publication relating to 'qualifications' (that is, tables 6 and 7) underestimate the number of qualifications attained by people who completed more than three qualifications. Occupation For people who worked as a wage or salary earner, it was the occupation in his/her job with their employer. For those who worked in their own business, it was their occupation in that business. An occupation is a set of jobs with similar sets of tasks. In practice, an occupation is a collection of jobs sufficiently similar in their main tasks (in terms of skill level and specialisation) to be grouped together for classification purposes. Occupation was classified to Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO), Second Edition, 1997 (Cat. no. 1220.0). On-the-job training Work-related training where at least one of the following activities were undertaken to improve his/her job skills, while working in any job, in the last 12 months: asking questions of co-workers or colleagues; teaching yourself; being shown how to do your job; or watching others work. Note: On-the-job training excludes any training that occurred as part of an internal or external training course, or study for an educational qualification. Participation Participation refers to being enrolled in a course of study or undertaking training. Remoteness The ABS has defined Remoteness within the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC). The ASGC Remoteness Structure is defined only in census years, commencing with the census year 2001, and includes all Collection Districts (CDs) across Australia. The purpose of the Remoteness Structure is to classify CDs which share common characteristics of remoteness into broad geographical regions called Remoteness Areas (RAs). The structure defines six RAs: Major Cities of Australia; Inner Regional Australia; Outer Regional Australia; Remote Australia; Very Remote Australia; and Migratory. The delimitation criteria for RAs are based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA), which measures the remoteness of a point based on the physical road distance to the nearest Urban Centre (ASGC 1996) in each of five size classes. For this survey, the ASGC 1996 CDs were used. The RAs were derived by calculating the average ARIA index value for each CD and applying the ASGC 2001 RA criteria. The exclusion of sparsely settled areas from the scope of this survey led to the sample size of the Very Remote Australia category being too small to publish data (refer to the definition of 'Sparsely settled areas' in this Glossary). As a result, data from the Remote Australia and Very Remote Australia categories have been combined in this publication. Note that the small amount of sample remaining in Very Remote Australia does not represent all people living in Very Remote Australia. The Migratory category is outside of the scope of this survey and has been excluded. The Remoteness Structure is described in detail in the publication Statistical Geography Volume 1 Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2001 (Cat. no.1216.0). School study School study is participation in primary or secondary level education, regardless of the institution or location where the study is or was undertaken. It therefore includes such study undertaken in a TAFE or other institution. Sector of employment Sector of employment is divided into public and private sectors. The public sector includes all local government authorities and government departments, Australian defence forces, agencies and authorities created by, or reporting to, the State, Territory or Commonwealth Parliaments. All other employment is classified to the private sector. Size of business For businesses which operate at more than one location, size was based on the number of people employed at all locations in Australia. Businesses employing fewer than 20 people were classified as 'small'. Sparsely settled areas Sparsely settled areas are defined as all Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) with a dwelling density less than 0.06 per square kilometre. They exclude: smaller islands off the coast of northern Australia; a small number of sparsely settled SLAs which are not contiguous with any other sparsely settled SLAs and would have provided too small a sample in a region; and certain Western Australian towns in sparsely settled SLAs with populations of 5,000 or more people. Study Used in this publication as an abbreviated form of ‘enrolled to study at school level or for a non-school qualification’. Studying full-time People who said they were enrolled to study full-time. Studying part-time People who said they were enrolled to study part-time. TAFE A Technical and Further Education institution. In Victoria this may also be interpreted as Training and Further Education. Training Refers to whether a person had undertaken at least one of the following types of activity in the 12 months prior to interview: completed an internal training course; completed an external training course; or undertook on-the-job training. Training courses Training courses were defined in this survey as activities which were undertaken in Australia primarily to obtain, maintain or improve employment-related skills or competencies. To be included in the scope of the survey, training courses had to: be work-related; have a structured format, with an orderly or methodical means of presenting or providing the training during a period of time; and be completed during the 12 months prior to the interview. Examples of training courses include: training seminars, training workshops and other group training sessions; demonstration training sessions and training conferences; audio visual presentations and talks or lecture presentations; and classroom-style presentations or self-paced training courses. Training courses exclude: on-the-job training or any type of ad hoc ‘learn as you go’ training, although some information was collected for this type of training; attendance at conferences, seminars, workshops, etc., where the primary focus was not on skills acquisition; and study for an educational qualification. Respondents were asked how many training courses they had completed in Australia in the last 12 months. Detailed questions were then asked about a maximum of four completed courses, starting with the most recent. This means that the tables in this publication relating to ‘training courses’ (that is, tables 23 to 31) underestimate the number of training courses undertaken by people who attended more than four training courses. See entries for internal training course and external training course. Unemployed People aged 15 to 64 who: were not employed during the reference week; had actively looked for full-time or part-time work at any time in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week; and were available for work in the reference week. Note: This definition differs slightly from that given in Labour Force, Australia (Cat. no. 6203.0). See paragraph 41 of the Explanatory Notes for details. Usual residence A usual residence is a dwelling that is a person's only or main residence. If a person resided in more than one dwelling, the usual residence was the dwelling with which the person had the strongest familial and/or economic ties. This would normally be the person's permanent home base or place of permanent address. Wage or salary earner An employed person who, during the reference week, worked for an employer for wages or salary in their main job. This definition differs from the definition of ‘employee’ given in Labour Force, Australia (Cat. no. 6203.0). See paragraphs 42 to 44 of the Explanatory Notes for details. Worked full-time In this publication 'worked full-time' refers to employed people who usually worked 35 hours or more a week in their current main job. It also refers to people who usually worked 35 hours or more a week with their main period employer. Worked part-time In this publication 'worked part-time' refers to employed people who usually worked less than 35 hours a week in their current main job. It also refers to people who usually worked less than 35 hours a week with their main period employer Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.