Australian Bureau of Statistics

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	EDUCATION: SCHOOL RETENTION
	This article is part of a comprehensive series released as The Health and Welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

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KEY MESSAGES Apparent school retention rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander full-time students continue to increase with more students studying until Year 12. The apparent school retention rate from Year 7/8 to Year 12 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students was 47% in 2010, up from 36% in 2000.

This article presents the latest apparent school retention rates made available from the National Schools Statistics Collection.

In 2010, the apparent retention rates for full-time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Year 7/8 to Years 10 and 12 were 96% and 47% respectively.

Apparent retention rates to Year 10 and beyond for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have steadily increased since 2000. The apparent retention rate from the first year of secondary school to Year 10 rose from 83% in 2000 to 96% in 2010, while at the Year 12 level the increase was from 36% in 2000 to 47% in 2010 (see graphs).


While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are still less likely than non-Indigenous students to complete their final years of schooling (47% compared with 79% in 2010), the gap between the two groups has narrowed. For Year 10, the difference between apparent retention rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous students decreased by 10 percentage points between 2000 and 2010. Differences in the Year 12 apparent retention rate decreased by 5 percentage points over the same period.

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