VET Provider Market Structures: History, Growth and Change. Research Report

This paper tracks the development of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) provider market over the last two decades in the context of significant policy changes and generally increased competition. It provides an insight into how the sector has arrived at its current position, painting a present-day picture of great diversity. More importantly, it prompts further, more fundamental, questions about the current structure of the provider market and whether it is optimally placed to deliver the skills and knowledge that students and the Australian economy require. The now wider scope of the National VET Provider Collection has enabled reports on total VET activity (TVA). TVA data have been instrumental in this initial analysis of provider and student numbers, which builds on the paper "Making Sense of Total VET Activity: An Initial Market Analysis" (NCVER 2016). Two appendices include the following: (1) one table showing changes in training provider registrations over the last two decades; and (2) one table and five figures that show the number of providers by type within each size band (providers with 1 to 100 students; 101 to 1000 students; 1001 to 10,000 students; and more than 10,000 students). [For "Making Sense of Total VET Activity: An Initial Market Analysis" (NCVER 2016), see ED566536.]