Careers advice – how well are young Australians prepared?

Findings from the latest OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that 37% of Australia’s 15-year-olds had not spoken to a careers advisor at school.

PISA provides critical insights for policymakers and educators into how well 15-year-olds nearing the end of compulsory schooling are prepared for the future.

In sharing PISA findings, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conducted a new analysis and has released a snapshot of the career guidance and support Australia’s 15-year-olds received in 2022.

It shows that the proportion of students reporting that they hadn’t spoken to a careers advisor at school was similar among both advantaged (36%) and disadvantaged (38%) schools. However, 37% of students from major city schools had spoken to a school careers advisor, compared with only 28% of students from remote schools.

The analysis shows that 81% of students at advantaged schools had a careers counsellor on staff, compared with 59% of students at disadvantaged schools. On the other hand, the percentage of students at disadvantaged schools where a specific teacher was responsible for providing career counselling – rather than a dedicated school careers advisor – was more than double that of students from advantaged schools (39% compared with 17%).

Why it’s important

ACER researchers have found Australian schools with dedicated careers advisors are more confident in meeting students’ needs.

The GENERATION longitudinal study, which is following thousands of young Australians in school until they are 25, also shows how the aspirations of young people are still being formed in their senior years of secondary school.

The latest survey in the study revealed that many Year 11 students who no longer wanted to attend university had been uncertain about what they wanted to do in Year 10.

Ensuring all students have access to career guidance is critical, with 7.7% of Australians aged 15 to 24 not engaged in either study or employment in 2023, and the OECD finding that ‘early joblessness can have lasting repercussions, especially as prolonged spells of inactivity may discourage young people from searching for a job’.

Learn more

The ACER Snapshots series explores findings from all of the global education studies in which Australian schools participate.

Read Snapshots issue 18: Opportunities for career guidance in Australian schools, by ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Sarah Buckley.

Find out more about Australia’s participation in PISA.