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This occasional paper is the ninth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). The Education and Care Services National Law and National Regulations govern the minimum standards and requirements that all providers of NQF regulated services must meet, including health and safety requirements. Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standard (NQS) upholds children's right to be protected and kept safe. The approved provider, nominated supervisors, coordinators and educators have responsibility for supporting the health, safety and wellbeing of all children. In exercising their responsibilities, they must take reasonable care to protect children from foreseeable risk of harm, injury and infection. This paper uses data from the National Quality Agenda Information Technology System (NQA ITS) to provide analysis of trends in serious incidents resulting in injury, trauma or illness in Australian children's education and care services between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2022.

We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given country and year. While autonomous schools do not affect overall achievement, effects are positive for high-socioeconomic status students and negative for immigrants. Impacts on segregation mirror these findings, with evidence of increased segregation by socioeconomic and immigrant status. Rather than creating "a rising tide that lifts all boats," autonomous schools increase inequality

Intersectionality highlights that different aspects of individuals' identities are not independent of each other. Instead, they interact to create unique identities and experiences, which cannot be understood by analysing each identity dimension separately or in isolation from their social and historical contexts. Intersectional approaches in this way question the common classification of individuals into groups (male vs. female, immigrant vs. native etc.), which raises important implications for the policy-making process. In education, analyses with an intersectional lens have the potential to lead to better tailored and more effective policies and interventions related to participation, learning outcomes, students' attitudes towards the future, identification of needs, and socio-emotional well-being. Consequently, as elaborated in this paper, some countries have adjusted their policies in the areas of governance, resourcing, developing capacity, promoting school-level interventions and monitoring, to account for intersectionality. Gaps and challenges related to intersectional approaches are also highlighted.

Module A of the OECD Higher Education Policy Survey (HEPS) 2022 elicited information on policies to promote digitalisation of higher education in OECD member and accession countries. In total, 30 jurisdictions responded, providing comparative information on various areas of digitalisation policy, from regulation and governance to financial and human resources. The survey results provide insight into the role of public authorities in guiding, coordinating and resourcing the digital transformation of higher education institutions. The analysis and comparative tables in this working paper provide insights that can support the development of strategic digitalisation policies.

Skilling Australia's current and future workforce is the theme for the 32nd National Vocational Education and Training (VET) Research Conference 'No Frills.' In keeping with the conference's theme, this discussion paper explores the resilience of the Australian VET sector and how it can continue to foster adaptability in the face of ongoing change.

Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its holistic nature. Indeed, measuring inclusion implies analysing a variety of policy areas within education systems, while also considering the different roles of the system, the school and the classroom. This paper discusses the application of the input-process-outcome model to the measurement of inclusion in education, and key indicators that can be adopted by education systems and schools to this end. It makes considerations relevant to policy makers when designing indicators to measure inclusion, such as the extent of their application, the constraints related to data disaggregation and the relevance of intersectional approaches to inclusion.

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.

'Transforming the future' can have different connotations in different contexts, but here the author focuses on the way in which the vocational education and training (VET) sector is adapting, anticipating and activating change in response to future skill demands. This discussion paper explores how the sector assists learners to skill, upskill and reskill, which in turn actively contributes to the Australian economy. Without a doubt, the past few years have been both difficult and unpredictable for many, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters such as bushfires and floods. This paper therefore also considers how the VET system has been able to adapt to these unforeseen events and what can be learnt from these responses and adapted for the future.

This discussion paper has been produced by Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), on behalf of all state and territory governments and the Australian Government, to inform the "2020 Review of the Disability Standards for Education 2005." This paper asks providers of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school age education and care services across Australia about their awareness and understanding of their obligation sunder the "Disability Discrimination Act 1992" (DDA). This includes questions of access and participation by children with disability to education and care. ACECQA's paper complements the broader discussion paper by the Australian Government about ECEC and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, and is provided in two parts: (1) part 1 is for all ECEC and school age education and care providers; and (2) part 2 asks questions that specifically target National Quality Framework (NQF) approved ECEC and school age education and care providers. [For the broader paper, "Final Report of the 2020 Review of the Disability Standards for Education 2005," see ED617747.]

The National Quality Framework (NQF) was established in 2012 to create a more efficient and cohesive approach to regulating early childhood education and care, and outside school hours care in Australia. The NQF provides a shared vision for governments and the children's education and care sector, and an agreed tool for measuring and monitoring service quality. It sets standards for safety and quality so that all children who attend services regulated under the NQF are supported to have the best start in life. This occasional paper discusses how and why the NQF came about, what has changed in the last 10 years, and future directions.

This paper summarises the exploratory quantitative analysis undertaken to investigate how vocational education and training (VET) students cluster and segment in the Australian VET market. This analysis is outlined in three sections. The first section focuses on 'clustering' as a technique for grouping data and the three clustering algorithms used. These are then discussed in more detail to provide some insights into how they operate. Their specific data requirements, along with their strengths and weaknesses, are also considered. In next section the outputs of the clustering approaches are considered. The resultant clusters are examined to better understand them, and meaningfully label and group them into segments. The final section returns to the raw data. This step was necessary to further explore (in this case, only some of) the identified market segments. Three key market segments are explored: students in targeted English programs; students in social inclusion programs; and migrant students.

This paper is the first publication from a project focused on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment practices in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia -- what we understand these to be and how they might be measured. Based on a review of the literature, this paper explores current definitions of quality in VET, the factors that impact on the quality of delivery and the various measures used to make judgements about it.

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

With the widespread onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Australian universities anticipated a significant loss of students and revenue and hence forecast the need for significant job reductions. Using Higher Education Statistics (HES) data on student numbers and full-time equivalent (FTE) staff by field of study, we explored changes which occurred between 2019 and 2020, this data only becoming publicly available in 2022. Against expectations, and with the exception of the field of study of Management and Commerce, nationally student numbers did not decline, but increased marginally. Our interest lay in the impact of this on casual academic staff employment in Australia's public universities, noting institutional strategies of having a flexible pool of casual staff to manage fluctuations in student demand. While the HES data does not allow firm conclusions, trends may become clearer with the release of the 2021 data. Nonetheless, it appears that many universities reduced casual academic staff numbers and marginally increased full and part time appointments. Overall, there were fewer academic staff to teach a static or increased number of students. What this exercise suggests is that irrespective of student enrolments, some universities may have used the pandemic as an opportunity for restructures and academic renewal. It also highlights the difficulties that universities may experience in managing their academic workforce.

The past informs the future. It achieves this in two ways: first, by providing the context in which decisions are made, and, second, by delivering the various experiences that enable discovery of what does and does not work. As the Australian vocational education and training (VET) system has evolved, the institutional structures and frameworks that are now in place may determine the direction of its next turn, while the willingness to learn from past experiences will dictate whether it will turn at all. 'The past informing the future' is the theme for the 2021 'No Frills' Conference -- a conference to be held online, because if anything has been learned from 2020, it is that the freedom to travel is no longer guaranteed. This 'No Frills' discussion paper reflects on some key developments in VET's past and how they have shaped the sector's approach to enduring issues such as VET's purpose, national harmonisation, and quality.

This paper studies the impact of compulsory schooling on violent behaviour and victimization in school using individual-level administrative data matching education and criminal records from Queensland (Australia). Exploiting a legislative increase in the minimum dropout age in 2006, this study defines a series of regression-discontinuity specifications to show that compulsory schooling reduces crime but increases violent behaviour in school. While police records show that property and drugs offences decrease, education records indicate that violence and victimization in school increase. Thus, prior studies that fail to consider in-school behaviour may over-estimate the short-run crime-reducing impact of compulsory education.

As part of its regulatory roles, the Australian Government Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is required to assess evidence of 'scholarship' that is put forward by providers, whether evidence of scholarship by individuals, such as teaching staff within the provider, or for the provider as a whole. TEQSA is seeking to review whether its current approach to assessing claims of scholarship and scholarly activity (as described in the Guidance Note on Scholarship) is adequate, or if the approach needs to be reconceptualised. The purpose of this discussion paper is to set out, for consideration by the sector and other stakeholders, draft principles that are proposed to guide providers in making claims related to scholarship, and to inform TEQSA's assessments of such claims. TEQSA's Guidance Note describes 'scholarship' as 'activities concerned with gaining new or improved understanding, appreciation and insights into a field of knowledge, and engaging with and keeping up to date with advances in the field.' This includes advances in ways of teaching and learning in the field and advances in professional practice, as well as advances in disciplinary knowledge through original research.' This discussion paper proposes a set of principles that would guide providers when offering evidence of their capacity to meet the requirements of the Higher Education Standards (HES) Framework in relation to scholarship. [For "Guidance Note: Scholarship. Version 2.5," see ED610488.]

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students' learning, engagement, identity and well-being, and can increase involvement of their communities in education. This working paper provides an overview of Indigenous languages learning in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada. These three jurisdictions participate in an OECD initiative "Promising Practices in Supporting Success for Indigenous Students," designed to help education systems to improve the experiences and outcomes of Indigenous students in education. The significance of Indigenous languages constitutes common ground between the diverse Indigenous peoples in these three countries. But learning in Indigenous languages and learning Indigenous languages follow diverse pathways with local language programme designs that fit the different historical and contemporary language contexts within and between the countries.

This occasional paper is the seventh in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). It explores the quality of children's education and care services based on the socio-economic status of the area in which they are situated. The Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) is used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to classify services by the level of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage of their local area. This paper uses SEIFA as a proxy measure to identify services that are more or less likely to educate and care for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper begins by highlighting contemporary research about the association between socio-economic status and developmental outcomes, and the impact of high quality education and care on children from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It then outlines the quality and availability of education and care in low socio-economic status areas, analysing service quality ratings and reassessment results. The paper also examines differences across service and provider management types, and remoteness classifications. The detailed analysis suggests that there are differences in the overall quality ratings of education and care services located in high and low socio-economic status areas. Services in relatively disadvantaged areas are slightly more likely to be rated Working Towards NQS and notably less likely to be rated Exceeding NQS than those in relatively advantaged areas.

Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or somewhere else on the gender/sexuality spectrum (LGBTQI+) are among the diverse student groups in need of extra support and protection in order to succeed in education and reach their full potential. Because they belong to a minority that is often excluded by heteronormative/cisgender people, they are often the targets of physical and psychological harassment. Such discrimination can place them at risk for isolation, reduced academic achievement, and physical and mental harm. This paper provides a brief history of how the LGBTQI+ population has often been misunderstood and labelled in order to understand challenges faced by students who identify as a part of this population. It continues by considering supportive educational policies and programmes implemented from national to local levels across OECD countries. Finally, the paper considers policy gaps and discusses policy implications to strengthen equity and inclusion for LGBTQI+ students.

In spite of advances in recognising that girls and boys, and women and men, do not have to be bounded by traditional roles, gender stereotypes persist in education and beyond. Children and youth are affected by gender stereotypes from the early ages, with parental, school, teacher and peer factors influencing the way students internalise their gender identities. As such, not only is intervening in pre-primary education necessary, but also measures at the primary and secondary levels are key to eradicate gender stereotypes and promote gender equality. Based on the analytical framework developed by the OECD Strength through Diversity project, this paper provides an overview of gender stereotyping in education, with some illustrations of policies and practices in place across OECD countries, with a focus on curriculum arrangements, capacity-building strategies and school-level interventions in primary and secondary education.

"Workforce-Ready: Challenges and Opportunities for VET" is the theme for the 29th National Vocational Education and Training Research Conference 'No Frills' from July 7-10, 2020. The phrase 'workforce-ready' might bring several different scenarios to mind. It may conjure an image of graduates making their first foray into the world of work. Or perhaps it evokes a sense of preparing for future jobs, the details of which are not yet clear. It might also elicit thoughts of people needing to upskill, perhaps to re-enter the labour market after an absence, or in response to some change in their organisation or with their job. It could also mean something as simple as getting the necessary accreditation to work in a particular industry. The vocational education and training (VET) system plays a large role in meeting all these needs. A large focus for the VET sector is on providing individuals with the skills they need to get a job or change jobs. This function of the VET sector is clearly reflected in the National Student Outcomes Survey, which shows that two commonly reported reasons why graduates undertook their training was to get a job (30.7% in 2019), or to try for a different career (11%; NCVER 2019a). This role is particularly pertinent in the current environment of substantial job losses due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Treasury expects the unemployment rate to rise to 10% in the June quarter, up from 5.1% (Frydenberg 2020). Young people are likely to be particularly affected, being overrepresented in the jobs hardest hit by the pandemic, for example, hospitality, retail, the arts, and sports and recreation. Many will explore training as a pathway to re-enter the labour market. This No Frills discussion paper considers the balance between ensuring that people have the skills they need to work now and equipping them with the knowledge and/or skills that will enable them to adapt to the changes they will inevitably see in their working lives.

This paper studies the contribution of parental influence in accounting for cross-country gaps in human capital achievements. We argue that the cross-country variation in unobserved parental characteristics is at least as important as the one in commonly used observable proxies of parental socio-economic background. We infer this through an indirect empirical approach, based on the comparison of the school performance of second-generation immigrants. We document that, within the same host country or even the same school, students whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Differential selection into emigration does not explain this finding. The result is larger when parents have little education and have recently emigrated, suggesting the importance of country-specific cultural traits that parents progressively lose as they integrate in the new host country, rather than of an intergenerational transmission of education quality. Unobserved parental characteristics account for about 15% of the cross-country variance in test scores, roughly doubling the overall contribution of parental influence.

The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (E2030) project's overall goal is that of looking to the future in terms of how school curricula should evolve given the technological advances and other changes that societies are now facing. Towards that end, the E2030 project centres on the idea that education needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to become active, responsible and engaged citizens. Mathematics is considered a highly relevant subject for achieving the above stated goals, as such it requires further and more detailed analysis. As a result, it has been chosen as one of the E2030 project's subject-specific analyses. The project has been named the Mathematics Curriculum Document Analysis (MCDA) study as per the request of participating countries. This working paper presents the findings of the MCDA study, which involves participants from 19 countries and jurisdictions.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) strengthens students' abilities to regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviours and to interact successfully with others. There are an array of important social and emotional skills (SES): goal-setting, working to one's potential, resilience, creativity, perseverance, problem solving, and caring about the welfare of others, among them. All students need SEL, but newcomer and refugee students may have particular challenges requiring SES. The beginning of this paper examines the current situation of refugee and newcomer students in OECD countries, SEL, its frameworks and skills and how they apply to newcomer and refugee students. The paper concludes with an examination of SEL policies and practices for newcomer and refugee students in OECD countries.

Since UNESCO's Salamanca Declaration in 1994, inclusive education has progressively attracted attention in international debates around education policy. While some evidence exists on the positive impact that inclusive education reforms can have on the academic and personal outcomes of diverse students -- and in particular of students with special education needs -- limited information is available on the economic sustainability of such reforms. Starting from the literature on the correlations between education and individuals' life outcomes, this paper reviews the existing evidence on the potential benefits and costs of inclusive education reforms. Specifically, the paper discusses the evidence on the shortcomings of current education settings for diverse groups of students -- with specific sections on students with special education needs; immigrant and refugee students; ethnic groups, national minorities and Indigenous peoples; gifted students; female and male students; and LGBTQI+ (which stands for 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex') students. It highlights the individual and societal costs deriving from the low academic, social and emotional outcomes of these students and the socio-economic costs these yield for societies. Where possible, the paper also presents evidence on the effects of inclusive education reforms on diverse student groups.

This paper summarises the evolution of student contributions in Australia since 1989, exploring system redesigns that commenced in 1997, 2005 and 2021. Public and private benefits are recurring themes in setting student contributions, both as high-level justifications for government policy and in pricing specific disciplines. Professor Andrew Norton evaluates five different rationales used by successive Australian governments to satisfy competing policy and political considerations: course costs, private benefits, public benefits, increasing resources per student place, and incentivising course choices. Professor Norton argues that despite using student contributions to guide course choices being central to current funding policy it is never likely to be effective. Student contributions do, however, have practical consequences that seem to be given little consideration by the government. These include how long it takes to repay student debt, how much of that debt the government will eventually write off, and university incentives to enrol students. As the new government reviews the Job-ready Graduates policy, the paper provides a useful basis for discussion, offering lessons from history in what works and what does not, and guiding policymakers towards student contribution systems that minimise problems for students, government and universities.

This occasional paper is the sixth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). It examines trends in quality improvement from the perspective of services rated Working Towards National Quality Standard (NQS) under the 2012 NQS. In this paper, a service is considered to have improved its quality at reassessment where it: (1) receives a higher overall quality rating; (2) receives a higher rating in a quality area; and (3) meets a higher number of elements of quality. Qualitative analysis suggests primary drivers of quality improvement include the recruitment and retention of highly trained educators that have a good understanding of the NQF, delivering education and care under the direction of high quality service leadership. Case studies describing quality improvement practices that were evident during reassessment have been included in this paper. These case studies are intended to aid and support the process of continuous quality improvement and the ongoing development of quality improvement plans (QIPs).

"The student journey: skilling for life" is the theme for the 28th National Vocational Education and Training Research Conference 'No Frills'. In this discussion paper, we look at how vocational education and training (VET) supports lifelong learners. We explore VET's role in assisting lifelong learning and seek to understand how VET will need to transform in the future to enable it to confront the challenges of an increasingly complex and changing world. We also profile the various lifelong learner types.

Prior research shows reduced criminality to be a beneficial consequence of education policies that raise the school leaving age. This paper studies how crime reductions occurred in a sequence of state-level dropout age reforms enacted between 1980 and 2010 in the United States. These reforms changed the shape of crime-age profiles, reflecting both a temporary incapacitation effect and a more sustained, longer run crime reducing effect. In contrast to the previous research looking at earlier US education reforms, crime reduction does not arise solely as a result of education improvements, and so the observed longer run effect is interpreted as dynamic incapacitation. Additional evidence based on longitudinal data combined with an education reform from a different setting in Australia corroborates the finding of dynamic incapacitation underpinning education policy-induced crime reduction.

The aim of the OECD Career Readiness project is to identify patterns of teenage attitudes and activities that are associated with better transitions into employment by analysing multiple national longitudinal datasets. This paper looks for further evidence of the link between teenage activities, experiences and career-related thinking and adult career outcomes by analysing 10 new datasets from eight countries. Overall, the results of this paper find further evidence that secondary school students who explore, experience and think about their futures in work frequently encounter lower levels of unemployment, receive higher wages and are happier in their careers as adults. The findings of this paper are analysed together with the evidence from the two previous working papers of the Career Readiness project, concluding that there is international evidence to support 11 out of the 14 potential indicators that were explored as indicators of career readiness.

Classrooms have become increasingly diverse places where students from various backgrounds share their learning experiences. To promote inclusive school settings for all, building teacher capacity for inclusive teaching represents a key policy area. Education systems need to ensure that teachers are adequately prepared for inclusive teaching and supported throughout their career. Mechanisms to attract and retain a more diverse teaching body as well as to monitor and evaluate teacher preparation and work with respect to diversity and inclusion should also be developed. While teacher policies have increasingly addressed some of these areas, most education systems lack comprehensive capacity-building frameworks for inclusive teaching. This paper maps policies and practices to build teacher capacity for inclusive teaching across OECD countries. It then presents core elements and competences to design and implement inclusive teaching strategies. Finally, the paper reviews some of the evidence available on teacher diversity and interventions for inclusive teaching.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented disruption to Australian international higher education. By some estimates the number of international students commencing at Australian universities dropped by 23.3 per cent in 2020 due to the closure of borders. The impact on universities has been dramatic, with many making significant cuts to staffing numbers and changes to course offerings. In recent decades international education has provided significant fee revenue to Australia, totalling over $40 billion in 2019. It is unlikely that the international student market will return to pre-2019 numbers soon. Australian borders are expected to be closed until 2022 and perhaps beyond. There is now an opportunity to reimagine and reconceptualise internationalisation in terms beyond its narrow economic value. This discussion paper is an attempt to shift the discussion about the future of Australian international higher education by focusing not on the narrow economic motivations or challenges but on the public good in terms of its social values and rationales. It is also an invitation to question how Australian universities can cultivate global competencies and offer a genuine international learning experience to all students with or without the additional value brought by physical mobility.

This paper explores how teenage thinking about jobs and careers relates to adulthood labour market outcomes. The OECD working paper "Career Ready? How schools can better prepare young people for working life in the era of COVID-19" (ED613604) identifies career certainty, alignment and ambition as relevant indicators related to career thinking. This paper extends analysis of these indicators to new longitudinal datasets from Australia, Denmark, and Switzerland, and incorporates two new indicators, instrumental motivation and career concentration. The findings provide further evidence that teenage career ambition, certainty, alignment, instrumental motivation and broad occupational expectations relate to positive employment outcomes, including in periods of economic turbulence. However, this is not always the case and on some occasions, this association is found only in specific subgroups. Finally, the paper presents evidence from the academic literature, analysis of OECD PISA data and accounts from practitioners, which focus on ways in which schools can foster students' career thinking.

This discussion paper explores the possibilities and risks that data linkage presents for the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Along with a broad overview of the nature of data linkage, it highlights possible applications for data linkage in the VET sector and examines the key challenges associated with its use. A number of case studies are reviewed to illustrate the advantages data linkage can offer, as well as the challenges that may arise. In order to better understand the options for data linkage from an education and employment perspective, a 'map' of relevant Australian datasets is presented, along with a list of data sources that may be of use to VET research. As well as selected Australian datasets, the paper reviews some international datasets of potential interest for VET research in Australia. Using the insights gained from past data-linkage projects and taking into account the privacy and ethics concerns, the paper presents a set of six principles for data linkage. These principles provide researchers with basic steps for guidance when embarking upon a data-linkage project. Finally, future directions for data linkage in VET research are explored.

ACECQA [Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority] has published its fifth occasional paper analysing Quality Area 7 -- Leadership and service management. This completes the suite of occasional papers that cover the four quality areas of the National Quality Standard that are comparatively challenging. Quality Area 7 recognises the importance of effective leadership and internal administrative systems in guiding and supporting educators, coordinators and staff members to deliver quality education and care programs. The paper highlights contemporary research and theory related to leadership and service management, describes the operational requirements of the National Law and National Regulations, and examines the distribution of quality ratings for Quality Area 7. It provides case studies of the Quality Area 7 elements, along with examples of evidence collected by authorised officers when assessing the elements. Future directions and the implications of the data and literature for service leadership and management are also examined. The paper will be of interest to people who deliver education and care services, people who provide training and professional development services to the sector, peak organisations, and officers in the state and territory regulatory authorities that regulate education and care services.

The National Student Outcomes Survey (SOS) collects information about students who completed their vocational education and training (VET) in the previous calendar year. The gathered information on the surveyed VET students includes their reasons for training, employment outcomes, satisfaction with training, and further study outcomes. The survey covers students who have completed a qualification (graduates) and those who have completed only part of a course and then left the VET system (subject completers). The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has conducted the survey with government-funded VET students annually since 1999. In 2016, the scope of the survey was expanded to report on the outcomes of graduates whose training was Commonwealth--or state-funded as well as fee-for-service graduates. These graduates were referred to as total VET graduates. An explanation of the difference between total VET and government-funded student outcomes can be found in appendix A. The expanded scope was applied to the 2017 survey for graduates (following a successful trial in 2016) and for the first time for subject completers and the series renamed VET student outcomes. At the time of sample selection, insufficient information is available from the National VET Provider Collection to identify 'actual' subject completers. Instead, a sample of potential subject completers is chosen, which includes students who are continuing in the VET system. The status of respondents is determined through the survey responses. As such, respondents to the SOS include a number of students who were sampled as subject completers based on administrative data reported to the National VET Provider Collection, but self-identify in the questionnaire as graduates. For many years these 'self-reported graduates' (SRGs) were categorised as graduates in survey outputs, because the self-report was deemed to be more reliable than the collection data. However, it became apparent that many SRGs were not, in fact, graduates. In response to this issue, in 2012, NCVER created a logistic model that predicted the eligibility of a SRG being an 'actual' graduate based on their personal and training characteristics (Braysher 2012). This model has since been run annually for each SOS to assign group membership to SRGs. Those SRGs that were not predicted by the model to be a graduate were re-assigned to their original subject completer status. One of the conditions of the initial analysis was that the model should be reviewed at least every four years to assess its ongoing validity and to make possible modifications should demographics and administrative data change and alter the predictive power of the model. The model was reviewed by NCVER in 2015 (unpublished). The review found some changes in data quality, but found no evidence that these changes were affecting the estimates. At the time no changes were recommended to the logistic model or graduate reclassification procedure, but it was recommended that the model be reviewed again at a later stage. In relation to data quality, the proportion of subject completers claiming to be self-reported graduates has declined significantly since 2007, particularly from 2015 to 2017, highlighting the improvement in the quality of the National VET Provider Collection data since the need to run the model arose (appendix B). Hence, it was appropriate to review the model again. This report presents the findings of an additional comprehensive review of the model and methodology.

Digital technologies offer immense potential for transforming teacher learning and the delivery of professional development activities throughout teachers' careers. As the COVID-19 pandemic has made face-to­-face professional learning challenging or impossible for teachers to attend in many contexts, online professional learning options for teachers have been receiving renewed attention. This paper puts forward research evidence on the effectiveness of various forms of online learning for teachers and adults, and examines prerequisite conditions for enhancing teacher learning through digital technologies. Teachers' engagement in online learning activities, as captured by OECD surveys, remained limited in many OECD countries before the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper provides a basis for investigating how policies can support teachers' engagement in professional learning using digital technologies and help strike a balance between system-level provision of online teacher professional learning opportunities and the facilitation of teacher-led initiatives.

This occasional paper is the fourth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). This paper offers detailed insights into education and care service quality ratings for Quality Area 3 (physical environment) of the National Quality Standard (NQS). The focus is on ensuring the physical environment of a service is safe, suitable and provides a rich and diverse range of experiences that promote children's learning and development. This paper begins with an overview of the physical environment standards and what these aim to achieve, highlighting contemporary research and theory behind sustainable environments promoting children's learning. It then outlines the operational requirements of the National Law and National Regulations for the physical environment, with a particular focus on the requirements specific to different service types. The paper also describes how service approval requirements in the National Law apply to the physical environment, and how providers may seek waivers for certain legislated requirements. The paper is intended to be of interest to people who deliver education and care services, families, people who provide training and professional development services to the sector, and to officers in the state and territory regulatory authorities that regulate education and care services.

Internationally, Australia's tertiary education system, comprising the higher education and vocational education and training (VET) sectors, is highly regarded, with both sectors subject to ongoing national review and reforms. This paper explores in detail the multiple issues that lie at what might be termed the "boundaries and connections" between these sectors. The purpose of this occasional paper is twofold, the first being to provide a brief illustration and commentary on the relative trend change and potential trajectories of Australia's vocational education and training (VET) sector by comparison with the higher education sector. This provides the necessary context for the second objective, which is to explore in detail the multiple issues that lie at what might be described as the "boundaries and connections" between these two components of the tertiary education sector.

This occasional paper provides a stocktake of recent developments in continuing professional development for VET practitioners. It explores issues such as industry currency, the debate around a professional association for VET and the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment as the minimum qualification for VET practitioners. Through synthesising the literature, the paper highlights enduring issues for continuing professional development in VET, such as the need to address both pedagogical knowledge and industry skills, and the necessity for individuals to actively engage and willingly participate in professional development in order for changes in practice to occur.