DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION

Two: Additional performance measures

Appendix 2 - Additional performance measures

Early years education and care

Performance measure
  2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
Child care service types located on school sites:  
Long day care:  
Government 15 18 25
Non-government 11 10 10
Occasional care:  
Government 4 8 6
Non-government 0 4 3
After school care:  
Government -1 47 54
Non-government -1 19 18
Before school care:  
Government -1 15 15
Non-government -1 8 6
Vacation care:  
Government -1 24 25
Non-government -1 11 13

School and college education

Performance measure
  2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
Children who attended government kindergartens 5,100 5,091 4,850
Students enrolled in out-of-area primary schools 30.9% 32.1% 30.5%
Students participating in home education 438 485 500
Students enrolled in distance education:  
Number 2,146 1,877 1,678
Full-time equivalents 1,392.9 1,173.6 1,075.5
Class sizes (average number of students):  
Kindergartens:  
Kindergarten only classes 20.3 19.5 18.9
Kindergarten in combined classes 18.1 18.2 17.3
Primary schools:  
Preparatory 22.0 22.2 22.0
Year 1 23.6 23.3 23.2
Year 2 24.3 24.1 23.4
Year 3 24.7 24.5 24.3
Year 4 24.9 24.7 24.8
Year 5 25.4 25.1 25.0
Year 6 25.3 25.1 25.0
P-6 overall 24.6 24.5 24.4
Secondary schools2 by school type:  
Secondary 24.5 24.4 24.3
Combined 22.8 23.2 23.1
All secondary 24.2 24.2 24.1
Ratio of students to teaching staff in Tasmanian government schools:  
Primary students per member of teaching staff 16.0 15.9 15.9
Secondary students per member of teaching staff 13.4 13.2 13.2
All students per member of teaching staff 14.8 14.6 14.7
Student exclusions for the year (number and percentage) 118 (0.17%) 80 (0.12%) 91 (0.13%)
Student expulsions for the year 4 0 2
Students with disabilities in special and regular education and early special education:  
Students attending early Special Education Centres:  
Number 378 380 447
Full-time equivalents 127.5 126.8 151.8
Students with the highest support needs (Register for Students with Severe Disabilities) in special schools:  
Number 140 138 125
Full-time equivalents 138.1 136.0 125.0
Students with the highest support needs (Register for Students with Severe Disabilities) in regular schools:  
Number 442 465 481
Full-time equivalents 430.4 454.2 474.4
Parents who considered their child’s school to be a safe environment 3,4 91% 91% 93%
Unplanned staff absences 3.2% 3.2% 3.0%
Separation rates for staff aged under 55 years:  
Administration/clerical 2.6% 1.1% 5.0%
Operational 3.2% 2.2% 2.2%
Professional 1.4% 0.9% 3.5%
Teaching services 1.3% 2.0% 1.1%
Technical 1.4% 1.2% 1.6%
Total 1.8% 1.7% 2.3%
Real government expenditure ($) per student (FTE) in government schools5 9,828 10,458 N/A
Access to internet-connected computers in classrooms (number of students per computer):  
Primary schools 5.9 5.9 4.6
High schools 3.9 3.8 3.4
Combined schools 3.4 3.5 3.2
Colleges 3.3 3.2 3.3
Special schools 3.1 2.9 2.7
Average across all sectors 4.5 4.5 3.9

Vocational education and training and adult and community education

Performance measure
  2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
VET qualifications completed 9,960 9,329 10,638
Employer satisfaction with VET 6,7:  
Satisfaction with apprenticeships/traineeship training in meeting skill needs - - 80%
Satisfaction with nationally recognised training in meeting skill needs - - 83%
Actual VET activity as a proportion of national activity targets agreed with the Australian Government 128% 130% 123%
Unit cost of publicly funded VET (deviation from national average) 8,9 +5% +3% +9%
TAFE students employed following training 75% 72% 81%
Students enrolled in VET in Schools courses 3019 2796 2625
Student contact hours delivered through VET in Schools programs (annual average) 395 303 276

Libraries, archives and online access centres

Performance measure
  2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
Percentage of significant items conserved10 65.0% 66.0% 67.5%
Total loans from libraries 4,493,263 4,420,969 4,565,061
Use of key State Library of Tasmania web resources 1,380,861 1,559,185 1,568,792
Active users of libraries and information services 154,403 160,159 157,346
Active library borrowers (percentage of the population) 32.0% 33.0% 32.0%
Library items available for loan or research 971,135 963,860 964,707
Library items held in city and branch libraries per head of population 1.48 1.45 1.43
Written enquiries from public dealt with by Archives Office staff 2,790 2,640 2,822
Deposits of private archival records in the Archives Office 62 40 64
Archival items accessioned into the
Archives Office		 34,642 78,559 102,003
Archives Office holdings of records (linear metres) 16,784 17,359 17,449
Records disposal authorisations issued by the Archives Office 30 31 54
Formal courses provided at online access centres 1,887 1,864 1,793
People formally trained at online access centres 7,458 7,987 5,285
Online access centre volunteers 901 920 842
Hours volunteered at online access centres 108,672 89,882 84,526
1 These services were licensed for the first time in 2004-05.
2 As secondary school students are not organised into classes which exclusively undertake a complete education program, the department has adopted English class size as a proxy measure.
3 Data collected from schools sampled during the reporting period.
4 Parents mildly, moderately or strongly agreed.
5 Includes notional user cost of capital and payroll tax. Excludes capital investing costs.
6 Data collected from employers who provided nationally recognised training for their employees.
7 Employers who were satisfied or very satisfied.
8 Data adjusted for inflation.
9 The measure has been adjusted from the previously published figure as a result of national changes to the calculation methodology.
10 Combined figures for the Archives Office of Tasmania and the State Library of Tasmania. The measure supports the achievement of Tasmania Together benchmark 21.6.2.