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More students heading into health, education, and engineering

Monday, 16 January 2012

Courses including education, health and engineering have seen the greatest growth in offers for tertiary education student places in 2012, Minister for Higher Education and Skills Peter Hall announced today.

The number of students receiving offers through the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) for health courses has jumped by 15 per cent, education 7 per cent and engineering by 14 per cent.

Mr Hall said around 56,000 Victorians would today receive VTAC online offers for a range of courses. While the majority – 44,000 – will be for university programs, a further 10,000 will receive an offer to study at TAFE and almost 2,000 will receive an offer to study at an independent tertiary institution.

Increases in first preference applications were experienced by a number of universities including The University of Melbourne (21 per cent), Australian Catholic University (14 per cent), La Trobe University (5 per cent) and RMIT University (6 per cent).

In response, universities have made almost 3,000 more offers this year than they did for study in 2011. RMIT University has lead the charge by making 1,343 more offers than the same time last year.

Making up the major increases this year are 1,146 more offers for health courses, 315 more offers for engineering programs and 225 more offers for education courses.

"As the Minister responsible for the Teaching Profession it is especially pleasing to see the growth in the number of Victorians enrolling in education courses," Mr Hall said.

"Greater access to tertiary education means more opportunities for Victorians to secure a better paid job. It also means business and industry will have the graduate workforce they need to drive Victoria's future economic prosperity."

Mr Hall said the Victorian Coalition Government was supporting all students who will receive an offer today by improving accessibility and choice in higher education.

"Increasing participation rates in tertiary education is vital to Victoria's continued economic prosperity," Mr Hall said.

"The Victorian Government is responding to this need by investing $1.3 billion in tertiary education and training in 2011-12 with targeted funding including $20 million in the Regional Partnership Facilitation Fund to increase rural and regional students' access to tertiary education and training."

Mr Hall congratulated all students who will receive first round offers, but also reminded students there are more alternative pathways to tertiary education than ever before.

"To those students who may have missed out on a first round offer it is important to remember that there are many paths to success, including further rounds of VTAC offers and a huge range of TAFE and vocational education and training courses that can allow students access future higher education studies," Mr Hall said.

The number of offers for courses at regional campuses have remained steady accounting for 15 per cent of all offers.

Mr Hall said the Government's $20 million Regional Partnership Facilitation Fund would send the right signal in the coming year that there are great opportunities to study in regional Victoria.

"It is pleasing to see strong student demand for courses at a number of regional campuses, particularly Deakin University's Geelong campus, ACU's Ballarat campus and La Trobe University's Bendigo campus," Mr Hall said.

"I hope to see this growth replicated at other regional campuses in future years as the results of the Victorian Government's investment begin to flow.

Mr Hall said while this year's tertiary offers were good news, industry and education providers would need to work even more closely together to ensure Victorian employers have the graduates they need into the future.

While VTAC manages offers to the majority of university courses, it only looks after admission to a small proportion of programs offered by TAFE and independent institutions. Offers to most of these courses are made directly to students by TAFEs and the institutions themselves.

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