Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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The apparent retention rate to Year 12 is the percentage of students who remain in secondary education from Year 7 to Year 12. To calculate the apparent retention rate in 2001, the total number of full-time students in Year 12 in 2001 is divided by the number of full-time students who were in Year 7 in 1996. The resulting figure is converted to a percentage.

A range of factors affects the calculation of the apparent retention rate, with no adjustments made for these effects. These include migration, students repeating a year of education, and transfers between the government and non-government systems at the end of Year 10. In addition, some Tasmanian non-government schools have no senior secondary college for Year 11 and 12 students, or their senior secondary colleges do not match the range of subjects offered at the equivalent government institutions.

Non-government schools have maintained higher retention rates than government schools until 2000 when government schools in Tasmania achieved a retention rate of 69.8, slightly higher than that of non-government schools with 68.8.

APPARENT RETENTION RATES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TO YEAR 12, Tasmania
	Government schools			Non-government schools
Years	Tasmania	Australia		Tasmania	Australia
1991	52.1	66.9		54.3	81.6
1993	58.9	73.1		65.9	84.2
1995	57.7	67.2		65.6	82.7
1997	56.2	65.7		64.7	84.8
1998	60.0	65.7		67.7	84.0
1999	65.7	66.4		69.4	84.2
2000	69.8	66.6		68.8	83.4
2001	68.5	67.8		69.3	84.4
Source: Schools, Australia (Cat. no. 4221.0) and ABS data available on request, National Schools Collection.

Overall the number of students remaining in school to a senior secondary level has increased significantly over the past two decades. This steady increase has occurred at both a national and State level, despite Tasmania’s retention rates being relatively low in comparison with Australia’s. The total Year 12 retention rate for Tasmanian schools has improved from 26.7 in 1981, to 68.7 in 2001 while the total Year 12 retention rate nationally has improved from 34.8 in 1981, to 73.4 in 2001.

APPARENT RETENTION RATES,
Tasmania, Australia, Years 7 to 12