Government subsidies have provided a major source of funds to private schools in Australia for three decades. The increasing level of private school subsidies since the mid-1970s has contributed to a steady increase in the proportion of students enrolled in private schools. This growth in the...

This paper analyses high school completion rates, known as ‘apparent retention rates’ in Australia, from 1989 to 2002. Unlike most measures of educational attainment or participation in Australia, the apparent retention rate was lower at the end of the 1990s than it had been in the early...

This paper contains a comparison of high school completion rates across Australian States and Territories from 1989 to 2002. These completion rates, known as 'retention rates', have a number of well-known deficiencies. When we adjust 'official' 2002 retention rates to take account of these...