The Federal Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report highlighted education and training as one of the key elements in raising Australia’s productivity. View the report here.
The report suggests achieving best practice in workforce productivity will require improved early education, increased higher education completions through better youth transitions and adult learning, and improvements in literacy and numeracy. It also predicts that over the next 40 years, apprentice participation rates will increase for males (aged 14-28) and females (aged 14-18). For other vocational education and training, participation is projected to increase for those aged 15-18, and remain unchanged for those over 18 years of age.
Lifting productivity to grow the economy
High productivity growth — producing more output with proportionately fewer workers — is the key to continued growth with an ageing population. Investments in Australia’s skills and infrastructure base will lead to a lasting improvement in productivity.
Education and skills
The Government increase in funding across the next five years to provide more opportunities for students with over 50,000 projected additional university places to 2013 and 711,000 extra vocational education and training places; improve transparency and quality of all forms of education; and increase the flexibility of education providers to meet the needs of students. Recognising the importance of vocational education and training in delivering Australia’s skills needs, in 2008 COAG also agreed to a new ($6.7 billion over five years) National Skills and Workforce Development Agreement to increase the skill levels of all Australians. The Agreement is also complemented by the Productivity Places Program (PPP) which provides 711,000 additional training places over five years.