Project summary

Objective

The Destinations Survey provides a platform for the NSW Department of Education to identify trends in, and correlates with, post-school education, training and employment destinations of secondary school students in NSW. The Destinations Survey provides critical information on post-school education pathways and attainments of young people in NSW, and the factors that drive students’ engagement, retention, educational achievements and pathway choices.

Benefits

Through the Disability Outcomes Framework, the department has identified that we currently do not have good measures of the post-school outcomes of students with disability. Including disability-themed questions in the 2021 Destinations Survey and linking to department-held administrative data about the adjustments students receive at school (NCCD data) will enable a measure of these outcomes.

Working closely with our colleagues in Inclusion and Wellbeing and contracting the Centre for Inclusive Design will enable us to improve the inclusivity and accessibility of the Destinations Survey. This will not only improve the survey experience for all respondents, it will also increase the quality of survey data.

What will success look like?

The department will have a measure of the post-school outcomes of students with disability that can be used to deliver the department’s commitments under the Disability Outcomes Framework.

The accessibility and inclusivity of the Destinations Survey is improved. All respondents have the agency and confidence to accurately answer survey questions.

How will success be measured?

This work will be successful if we have a measure of the post-school outcomes of students with disability, including information about the school level adjustments that may be correlated with these outcomes.

This work will be successful if we take on feedback and guidance from the Centre for Inclusive Design and improve both the survey questions and survey platform to increase inclusivity and accessibility.

Key project milestones

• Contract the Centre for Inclusive Design to undertake a heuristic review of the Destinations Survey instrument and online platform and to test the survey questions with a variety of users: April – October 2021
• Improve the Destinations Survey based on feedback from the Centre for Inclusive Design: May – November 2021
• Work with Inclusion and Wellbeing to include some additional disability themed questions in the 2021 Destinations Survey: May 2021
• Work with CESE’s Data Governance team to update survey consents for the Destinations Survey to enable linkage with NCCD data: May 2021
• 2021 Destinations Survey is in field: July – November 2021
• Findings on the post-school destinations of students with disability available from the destinations survey – December 2021 (internally) April 2022 (for public reporting)