Education and Skills

Australia’s trajectory as a modern developed nation depends on a highly skilled, educated and innovative population and workforce. Successive state and federal governments have reiterated this as a key outcome for policies relating to education, training and skills and migration policies. BCEC has a dedicated research program that seeks to further understand the skills and education needed to enhance WA’s economic trajectory and inequities that exist in the current education system that prevent Australians from accessing and achieving all they can.

A number of projects are currently underway at the Centre that focus on the WA education sector including understanding the future international demand for tertiary education in Western Australia and estimating the predictors of apprenticeship completions in WA. At a national level, BCEC researchers are assessing issues such as the efficiency of Australian schools, equal access to education, the labour market return of academic fraud, institutional differences in the earnings of higher education graduates and how socio-economic status influences university outcomes.

Related Publications

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Presentation: Employment and disability in Australia Michael Dockery, Alan Duncan View the presentation by lead authors Professor Mike Dockery, Principal Research Fellow, and Professor Alan Duncan, Director, both of Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, from the launch of the report Employment and disability in Australia: Improving employment outcomes for people with disability, on... Read article 14 March 2024Focus on The States  |  Presentations Read More
BCEC Monthly Labour Market Update – November 2023 Alan Duncan, Michael Dockery – Surprise pre-Christmas jump in full-time employment: up by 0.6% in November – – Participation rate leaps to 67.2 per cent, 0.2ppt – – MYEFO projections banking on deteriorating jobs growth in coming quarters – Jobs figures strong, but estimates... Read article 18 December 2023Monthly Labour Market Update Read More
BCEC Monthly Labour Market Update – October 2023 Alan Duncan, Michael Dockery – Inflation and interest rates to stay high for longer – – Labour market stubbornly resilient, as jobs grow by 55,000 nationally – – Real wages to keep falling in coming quarters – Jobs data in line with revised expectations... Read article 20 November 2023Monthly Labour Market Update Read More
Using the net promoter score to understand international alumni satisfaction Shane Dillon Giving a platform to the debate about graduate employability from the student, university and employer perspectives, this innovative How To Guide explores the challenges associated with ensuring the employability of university graduates. In defining the nature of employability, the book,... Read article 1 May 2023Books and Book Chapters Read More
2022 Women’s Report Card Alan Duncan, Daniel Kiely, Silvia Salazar The 2022 Women’s Report Card sets out the status and current state of play of women in Western Australia, and in doing so, helps to track progress to achieving better outcomes for women. As is the case to varying degrees... Read article 4 August 2022Research Reports Read More
Parental expectations of children’s higher education participation in Australia Michael Dockery, Paul Koshy, Ian W. Li The role of parental expectations in determining children’s higher education participation is important in understanding both participation and potential policy responses Using a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Australian households, providing repeat observations on expectations for individual children, this study... Read article 5 April 2022Journal Articles Read More