Investing in skilling, upskilling, and reskilling workers in remote, rural, and regional Australia drives economic vitality, fosters community resilience, and bridges opportunity gaps. The key to improving skills training across these areas relies on a mutually supportive network of quality independent Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and public TAFE colleges.

Approximately 87.3% of students engaged in skill training in remote, rural, and regional settings choose to study with an independent RTO, that's 1.12 million students. The table below outlines the student count in skill training across remote, rural, and regional areas for each jurisdiction, highlighting the percentage of these students trained by independent providers relative to the total student numbers in these regions.

		Official Data — Rural, Remote & Regional Skills Training
		◾ Students with independent providers ◾ Apprentices and trainees with independent providers ◾ Apprentices and trainees with independent providers	1,120,320 (87.3%) 143,275 (47.4%) 505,255 (86.4%)

The complete report contains can be downloaed via the link below.

Official Data — Rural, Remote & Regional Skills Training ◾2024 Rural, Regional & Remote Skills Snapshot

. . [PDF Download]

In the Regionalisation Ambition 2023 vision statement, the Regional Australia Institute sets a national goal to increase the share of skilled workers employed in regional Australia to 80% of the regional workforce. It’s clear that independent RTOs are trusted by both students and employers to help achieve this target.

The data in the 2024 Rural, Regional & Remote Skills Snapshot is drawn from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments. NCVER data is widely used by governments to assess the performance of the skills training system.

Independent Skills Training – Great for students, great for Australia.

Further Information —

For further information on this report, please contact the ITECA team via email at [email protected] or telephone 1300 421 017.

.

This information may be reproduced in limited circumstances under a Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.  Information published on this webpage is intended for general information only and no warranty is providers as to accuracy or completeness thus any reliance you place on this material is therefore strictly at your own risk.