New Measure – Data coming soon

An individual who is fully engaged in work and/or study is either working full-time, studying full-time, or both working and studying. Individuals who are working or studying part-time are classified as partially engaged.

• The engagement of young South Australians has plausibly dropped in 2024 in comparison to previous years (2018 – 2023).
• Young South Australians were less likely to be fully engaged in work and/or study in 2024 than the national average of young people.
• The wide margins of error (MoE) in the plot are due to the relatively small number of young people surveyed in SA. To increase the accuracy in the estimate of fully engaged young people, more young people in each state must be surveyed.
• No other states are included in the graph above due to the large MoE in each, as a result of which we cannot distinguish between the states’ percentages of engagement.

Data Source: ABS, Survey of Education and Work

In 2021,

Click the legend to include other states

• There was no difference between SA and Australia in fully engaged young people with a disability (69.4% SA vs 69.7% nationally); however, SA had a higher percentage of partially engaged young people than nationally (10.9% SA vs 8.9% nationally).
• Vic have a higher percentage than SA of full engagement in work and/or study among young people with disabilities.
• Qld and NT had a lower percentage of fully engaged young people with a disability than SA, and NSW and Qld had a lower percentage of partially engaged.

Note on the above plot: The Census’ definition of disability is “…those needing assistance in their day to day lives in one or more of the three core activity areas of self-care, mobility and communication.” This definition of disability is quite deficient as it excludes individuals with moderate or mild limitations who also need assistance in one or more of the three core activity areas. Due to this restrictive definition, no analysis can be performed to determine how different limitations affect engagement in working and/or studying.

Data Source: ABS, Census

Attendance Rates Across School Years

School attendance in South Australia shows a long-term decline from 2014 to 2022, followed by a partial recovery from 2023 to 2025. Attendance across Years 1-10 fell from around 92% in 2014-2015 to 85.6% in 2022, before improving to 89% in 2025. However, attendance has not returned to pre-COVID levels.

Attendance is consistently lower among secondary students (Years 7-10) compared to primary students (Years 1-6), indicating lower engagement in the middle and later years. This gap persists over time, with older students more likely to disengage from school.

Some general caveats should be considered when interpreting the data:

• Changes to methodology and reporting standards, including alignment to national standards, revisions to SEA quartile assignment, and updates by ACARA, may affect comparability over time.
• Caution is required when comparing attendance rates across school years and jurisdictions due to differences in underlying student population counts.
• Attendance data for 2020 is not available; therefore, trends around this period should be interpreted with caution.
• Differences in state education systems, policies, and population characteristics mean that variations may not solely reflect performance differences.
• Some data points are suppressed for privacy reasons (small counts), which may affect comparability for smaller jurisdictions or subgroups.

Data Source: Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)

• The percentage of SACE completions peaked in 2021 at 76.4%.
• Female students have a higher percentage of SACE completion than male students.
• The SACE completion gaps between female and male students was the lowest in 2017 at 8.96%, biggest gap in 2014 at 13.6% and in the current year there was a gap of 10.7%.
• In 2023, 71.5% of SA students completed SACE (77% of female students completed in comparison to 66.3% of male students).

Data Source: Data Agreement between CDC and SACE Board

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) report a higher percentage of Year 12 certification rate for SA (88.8% in 2022 compared to 69.6% of SA students completing SACE reported above). The ACARA definition of Year 12 completion includes students who complete Senior Secondary Certificate (SACE for SA students) or equivalent, i.e vocational education and training (VET) and certificate lll courses. However, ACARA’s reported rates are subject to some notable caveats, including a significant risk of double counting. For example, students who complete both VET qualifications and SACE may be counted twice, inflating the overall completion rate.