INTRODUCTION

'Highest educational attainment' identifies a person's highest educational achievement or qualification in any area of formal study, incorporating both level of school completed and non-school qualifications.

The standard contains two distinct variables:

• the level of a person's highest educational attainment
• the main field of a person's highest educational attainment.

This variable uses the standard variables 'Highest year of school completed' and 'Highest non-school qualification' to rank people's highest educational attainment. The variable, 'Level of highest educational attainment', is designed for the purpose of obtaining a single value for level of highest educational attainment and is not a measurement of the relative importance of different levels of study.

The 'Education Standard Variables Guide’ provides information on education concepts, classifications and terminology used in this standard.