Paula Kossack

1. Overview on the collection and use of data, in reference to students in higher vocational education, for the purpose of evidence based policy making Paula Kossack

2. Why follow-up? • The goal is an effective, well-functioning education. • Follow-up-data is input for different types of users: • The government needs information/data to make decisions about where public funding creates most value or if the law has to be changed. • The Agency's management needs information/data to make decisions about how to manage the Agency. • Employees at the agency can use information/data in daily work to make decisions, for example when they decide which educational programs should be approved and get funding from the Agency. ensure quality in education and give input for further improvement

3. How do we work? • Analysis of users’ needs • Collection of data • Analysis of data • Presentation of results and help to understand the impact of results

4. Analysis of users’ needs • Some are given: • The governments instruction to the Agency - definition of the Agency’s tasks in the long run, permanent tasks • The governments annual instruction to the Agency - new for each year, can be very detailed • Some are not given, but evolve while working: • The needs of the Agency’s management • The needs of the employees • The needs of other parts (social partners at the labour market, regional networks etc.) • continuous dialogue, workshops

5. Collection of data/data sources • Data at the Agency as a by-product of administration of pay-outs of funding to the providers of education • Data about educational programmes, the students and providers of education • Data from Statistics Sweden’s register (source: other agencies, surveys) • Background data about the students • Follow-up of labour market status after education • Surveys that the Agency is responsible for • Follow-up of labour market status after education • data sources can be combined

6. Analysis of data • Neutral description of data • Frequencies for one year • Time series • The bigger picture • Cautious interpretation and valuation • Policy-making recommendations are not part of the follow-up • The users of follow-up-reports valuate and interpret independently • Rather neutral description

7. Presentation of results • Even though it´s mainly up to the users to valuate the results we help them to understand/use the data in a correct way. • Presentation for the ministry • Presentation for the Agency’s management • Workshops for the employees • Give the users information that can be used to • facilitate decision making.

8. An example – follow-up survey of students the year after their exam • Survey (mailand web) • Annually • All students with exam one year answer the survey august/september the year after the exam. • 64 percent answered the survey 2011 – estimation is necessary to get results that represent the whole population and not only those who answered the survey.

9. An example – follow-up survey of students the year after their exam (exam 2010, status 2011)

10. An example – follow-up survey of students the year after their exam (exam 2010, status 2011)

11. An example – follow-up survey of students the year after their exam (exam 2010, status 2011) • Advanced vocational education and training • Health care and nursing, Social work and social care • Dental assistant • Agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishery • Horse breeding and training, riding instructors The tabular shows an estimation of percentage of students with exam with 95 % confidence interval.