VET Enrolments 2023

The latest National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) statistics report offers insight into the number of students enrolled in government-funded vocational education and training (VET) for the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. From January to June 2022, the number of enrolled students was 876,335. This number rose 4% to 911,180 in 2023 with

▪ 479,805 (52.7%) students enrolled at TAFE institutes, up 1.8% from the same time last year.

▪ 315,780 (34.7%) at registered training organisations (RTOs), up 305% from the same time last year.

Enrolments by state and territory

In 2022, many states and territories saw a decrease in enrolments, with the largest decrease being 10.4% (209,915) in Victoria.

2023 saw the opposite, with the majority of states and territories seeing an increase in enrolments, with South Australia having the biggest increase in student enrolments, up by 9.5% to 54,665. Many of the other states and territories saw a similar increase:

• Western Australia was up by 9% to 85,200.
• Tasmania was up by 5.5% to 20,570.
• Victoria was up by 5.2% to 220,795.
• Northern Territory was up by 4.4% to 10,780.
• Queensland was up by 2.7% to 182,105.
• New South Wales was up by 2.3% to 324,955.

The only state/territory that saw a decrease in enrolments was the Australian Capital Territory. This territory saw a decrease of 7.9% to 12,115 enrolments.

Program enrolments

In 2023, the most popular education sectors swapped from 2022, with engineering and related technologies (173,830 or 17.1%) seeing the most enrolments, followed by society and culture (142,450 or 14.0%).

The community services training package continued to see the most enrolments (22.3% or 183,585), followed by the construction, plumbing and services integrated framework (10.5% or 86,720). The difference between these two training packages is significant, with an 11.8% difference totalling around 96,000 students. This highlights the current demand for quality community service resources.

Almost half of the enrolments were in Certificate III (49.3%), with the next highest qualification being Certificate IV (21.4%). This is an indication of the lack of incentive for learners to take up higher qualifications, such as diploma-level or higher.

View the full report to learn more about this year’s VET student enrolments.