The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research shares depressing stats 

The NCVER reports Gen Z post-school outcomes from 2018 in new data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth.

The not-great news for the training sector is that university still is the destination of choice. Of the 59 per cent of Zers who said they planned to go to university after finishing school 69 per cent did. Of the 11 per cent who thought they would go on to some form of training only 51 per cent did.

But the bad news for everybody is the numbers of young people who are not engaging with education and training at all.  Exaggeration, you think. Cop these shockers CMM says.

* some 16 per cent of 18-year-olds did not compete Y12 (admittedly down from 24 per cent in 2009)

*  of early leavers, 20 per cent had a job or training lined up, another 16 per cent left to look for them, but 24 per cent gave school away because they did not like it or thought they weren’t doing well

*   of people who planned to go to uni after school 16 per cent are working, with no study/training and 6 per cent aren’t in education, employment or training at all

* among people who planned to work 14 per cent aren’t training, in jobs or education

* of those who planned to go into training after school 8 per cent are busy doing nothing

Not good – there are a lot of young people who are setting themselves up for a life of unskilled, under or outright unemployment.