The ways in which our senior secondary schooling system supports students to make informed decisions about how best to achieve their further study and work goals are critical. This discussion paper is designed to stimulate debate. It does not claim to cover the full range of issues impacting on senior secondary pathways.

Innovative Research Universities (IRU) has published this short paper on the impact of COVID-19 on Year 12 school outcomes and the challenges this creates for university selection of the 2020 school leaver cohort.

This research looks at secondary school students who undertook a VET for Secondary School Students (VfSSS) program in 2011 and investigates whether they are in work and/or further studies five years later (2016), and the extent to which their VfSSS studies are linked to these employment and study destinations.

The author presents three case studies showing how three secondary schools performed before and after The New Zealand Initiative's tool separated the contribution of family background from the contribution of each school.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics and science, and what they can do with what they know. It provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date.