Senior Secondary Certificate Statistical Information 2023

Section 8: Completion of Victorian Senior Secondary certificates

Data source: 2023 data were extracted from the VCAA corporate database at 19 January 2024 (Published).

If you have any concerns or comments, please contact the Data Analysis and Reporting Unit by emailing: research.vcaa@education.vic.gov.au.

Section 8

Completion of Victorian Senior Secondary Certificates

This section shows the number and percentage of 19 years olds who have completed VCE/VCE VM/VCAL (at Intermediate or Senior certificate level).

The table below shows over the last 10 years, the number of young people by age 19 who completed the VCE/VCE VM/VCAL (Intermediate or Senior level) has risen from 54,819 in 2014 to 57,717 in 2023. The VCE/VCE VM/VCAL completion rate by age 19 in 2023 was 79.6%. This is 3.1 percentage points higher than that in 2014.

This table also shows that:

By age 19 in 2023, there were 49,120 (48,992 plus 128) young people who completed the VCE.
An increasing number of young people completed only the VCAL certificate at an Intermediate and/or Senior level. In 2014 there were 5,935 young people aged 19 who completed a VCAL certificate at an Intermediate and/or Senior level. In 2023 this has increased to 8,597.
In 2023, only VCAL Intermediate was available for enrolment. The students who would have completed VCAL senior have transitioned into the VCE VM.

Table 1: Contributions of VCE/VCAL^a towards the completion of a Senior Secondary Certificate by 19 year olds
	19 Year olds cohort^b
	VCE/VCAL completions					VCE/VCAL completion rate
Year^c	VCE only	VCE & VCAL	VCAL only	Total	Population	VCE only	VCE & VCAL	VCAL only	Total
2014	47,574	1,310	5,935	54,819	71,670	66.4	1.8	8.3	76.5
2015	47,530	821	6,649	55,000	71,190	66.8	1.2	9.3	77.3
2016	48,581	118	7,912	56,611	71,857	67.6	0.2	11.0	78.8
2017	48,544	84	7,761	56,389	71,916	67.5	0.1	10.8	78.4
2018	49,354	82	7,932	57,368	72,683	67.9	0.1	10.9	78.9
2019	50,137	70	7,751	57,958	73,341	68.4	0.1	10.6	79.0
2020	49,113	61	7,797	56,971	72,909	67.4	0.1	10.7	78.1
2021	48,166	44	8,427	56,637	72,430	66.5	0.1	11.6	78.2
2022	48,762	39	8,774	57,575	72,554	67.2	0.1	12.1	79.4
2023	48,992	128	8,597	57,717	72,554	67.5	0.2	11.8	79.6

^a Includes satisfactorily completion at an Intermediate and/or Senior level.

^b Population figures are sourced from ABS Cat:3101.0, Australian Demographic Statistics, June 2023. The Estimated Resident Population of 17 year olds two years earlier is used as the population for the aged 19 cohort. This is to mitigate the impact of migration of young people after leaving school. The adoption of this age group for the calculation of completion rate by age 19 is consistent with DET’s approach. In the previous report, the population of 19 year olds was used as a denominator to calculate the completion rates.

^c The 2019 - 2023 estimated resident population figures are preliminary.

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