Education is an essential means of building the knowledge and skill levels of the labour force, which is a key factor in achieving future economic and social development.
The level of educational attainment for Mid North Region's resident workforce relates to a number of factors including:
- The age structure of the resident workforce;
- The professional or social ambitions of people to obtain qualifications (that is, to seek education and retraining);
- The opportunities afforded to people to continue studying beyond compulsory schooling, and;
- The knowledge and skill requirements of the local industries.
Qualification should be looked at in conjunction with Income , Occupations and Field of qualification for a clearer picture of the knowledge and skill level of Mid North Region's local resident workers.
When comparing the Qualifications of local resident worker with local workers, Qualifications statistics indicates whether an economy draws on the skills offered by its own residents or on a different set of skills imported from elsewhere in the region.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – Census 2011 and 2016 – by usual residence
|Resident workers qualifications|
|Mid North Region - Persons||2016||2011||Change|
|Qualification level||Number||%||South Australia||Number||%||South Australia||2011 - 2016|
|Bachelor or Higher degree||1,291||14.9||25.9||1,183||13.4||22.1||+108|
|Advanced Diploma or Diploma||808||9.4||10.6||702||8.0||9.4||+106|
|Certificate I and II Level||174||2.0||1.5||166||1.9||1.6||+8|
|Certificate III & IV Level||2,070||24.0||21.4||1,898||21.5||20.1||+172|
|Certificate Level, nfd||232||2.7||2.2||194||2.2||1.9||+38|
|Inadequately described or not stated||306||3.5||2.7||366||4.2||3.9||-60|
Analysis of the qualifications of the resident workers (All industries) in Mid North Region in 2016 compared to South Australia shows that there was a higher proportion of resident holding formal qualifications (Bachelor or higher degree; Advanced Diploma or Diploma; or Vocational qualifications), and a lower proportion of males with no formal qualifications.
Overall, 53.0% of the resident workers (All industries) held educational qualifications, and 43.5% had no qualifications, compared with 61.6% and 35.7% respectively for South Australia.
The major differences between qualifications held by the resident workers (All industries) of Mid North Region and (South Australia) were:
- A smaller percentage of resident workers (All industries) with Bachelor or Higher degree (14.9% compared to 25.9%)
- A larger percentage of resident workers (All industries) with No qualification (43.5% compared to 35.7%)
- A larger percentage of resident workers (All industries) with Certificate III & IV Level (24.0% compared to 21.4%)
The largest changes in the qualifications held by the resident workers (All industries) in Mid North Region between 2011 and 2016 were:
- No qualification (-554 persons)
- Certificate III & IV Level (+172 persons)
- Bachelor or Higher degree (+108 persons)
- Advanced Diploma or Diploma (+106 persons)