Abstract:
Vocational education provides an educational but not a social ladder of opportunity to Australian higher education. Five dual-sector universities with significant enrolments in both vocational and higher education admit about twice the proportion of students transferring from vocational education as single- and mixed-sector universities. But since the students in the upper levels of vocational education have a socio-economic composition similar to higher education students, vocational education does not provide a social ladder of opportunity by increasing access by students from a low socio-economic status background. These are the results of statistics obtained from the Australian Department of Employment, Education, Training and Workplace Relations. The findings support the extension of dual-sector universities and other measures to articulate vocational and higher education, but suggest that more needs to be done to improve the representativeness of the upper levels of vocational education.

Full text available as: Microsoft Word

Moodie, Gavin; Wheelahan, Leesa (2009). The significance of Australian vocational education institutions in opening access to higher education.