Review of 2021 Census Topics

• Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics
• Australian Bureau of Statistics
• National Transport Commission
• Transport for NSW
• Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, Victoria
• Transport for Victoria
• Department of Transport, Western Australia
• Department of Main Roads, Western Australia
• Department of Transport and Main Roads, Queensland
• Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, South Australia
• Department of State Growth, Tasmania
• Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics, Northern Territory
• Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate, Australian Capital Territory
• National Heavy Vehicle Regulator
• Australian Local Government Association

Modification to 2016 Census Question 25 “What type of educational institution is the person attending?”

This relates to a change to an existing topic.

A modification is recommended to 2016 Census Question 25 “What type of educational institution is the person attending”. It is recommended it be modified to ask respondents for the name of the pre-school, school or other place of education including its campus and/or suburb, city/town.

This modification, used in conjunction with an education place type and address database compiled from official sources, would potentially allow more accurate coding of TYPP (Type of Educational Institution Attending). It would also allow introduction of a new spatial classification for Place of Education (POEP) with high locational determinability to be used with a potential new question on Method of Travel to Education (MTEP).

Reasons for our support for the modification of the question on type of education institution attending to ask respondents for the name of the pre-school, school or other place of education including its campus and/or suburb, city/town are detailed below.
• For more than 10 years, State Transport Authorities (STAs) have advocated for Census content change to collect data relating to Journey to Education (JtE).
• Data is essential on the Place of Education attended to improve information available for school and general transport infrastructure and services planning and investment, and transport policy development.
• Education travel often coincides with journey to work travel, particularly in the morning peak accounting for approximately 35 percent of trips (similar to journey to work as a percentage of peak journeys) in major urban regions, but the spatial distribution of many of these journeys is not well understood. Journey to Education data including Place of Education would be useful to understand the contribution of the education trips to peak travel at the local level, so Census data would provide finer grain accuracy.
• Spatial information by Place of Education and Place of Residence linked to other Census data would enable more detailed analysis of socio-economic characteristics of school communities and catchments to improve both transport and education infrastructure and service planning and investment.
• In order to ensure transport planning, infrastructure investment and operational refinements are made with an appropriate evidence-base, more detailed spatial information in regards to journeys to education, to complement journey to work data, is required.
• Such data is required as an input, calibration and/or validation variable for strategic transport models that cover most Australian capital city areas and their surrounding regions. Strategic transport models include a number of trip purposes relating to education for example: (1) primary school education, (2) secondary school education, and (3) tertiary education. There is currently a lack of comprehensive information to calibrate and validate their distribution models.
• Place of education information coupled with mode used for journey to education could be used to inform planning and evaluate the efficacy of infrastructure investments, operational changes (such as the inclusion of new bus services) and school travel behaviour change programs.
• Other government agencies such as local and Commonwealth agencies, will also benefit from the data. Examples of potential local government use of JtE data including Place of Education include:
o Analysis of the travel patterns around school sites, to assist in addressing the current and future traffic management pressures directly around schools.
o The data could assist in reviewing all travel patterns in a suburb, correlating this data with existing traffic counts, which could assist in planning the future road network upgrades. This is similar to State agency use of the data for transport modelling.
o Additional understanding of the needs of remote and regional students, specifically whether the existing access to bus services is adequate (i.e. the correlation of the distance between home and school and the access to bus services).
o The data could assist in addressing community safety (incidences of violence) issues and justification for the provision of adequate street lighting. This could provide additional Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) urban design outcomes to provide a safe environment for students studying at campuses at night that are walking or using public transport.
• Place of Education (POEP) directly linked with Place of Residence and other socio-economic data from the Census would potentially improve data available to inform school funding arrangements. From 1 January 2018, amendments to the Australian Education Act 2013 took effect. The amendments include Australian Government funding arrangements for both government and non-government schools.

While a number of STAs have previously collected data on journeys to education as part of a household travel survey, data collected from such surveys are based on a small sample of population and only in some parts of their state, and is thus not at the level of spatial detail that the Census would be able to provide. In addition to this, in some states their household travel survey data is quite dated.

Household travel surveys are typically very small. For example, some collect information from less than 1 percent of households and therefore only gather information that can be applied in analysis at an aggregate regional level or for model development generally representing average regional behaviour.

More spatially detailed information is needed on which to develop, calibrate and validate more detailed transport analyses and models. Inputs to such models and analyses couple residential (home) and daytime (for example, place of work or education) location of the population including students with other demographic characteristics in the Census to derive models that replicate travel patterns of the current population. These models are then applied to small area projections of population, employment and enrolments to estimate growth in travel demand and changes in travel patterns into the future.

Similarly, for education planning, spatial information by Place of Education combined with other characteristics from the Census would enable more detailed analysis of socio-economic characteristics of school communities and catchments to improve education infrastructure and service planning and investment. The current level of detail from the 2016 Census only provides information about students at their place of residence but planning effort and investment targeting could be improved if the education facility location dimension were added. This would potentially improve the Australian Government school funding allocation model which currently uses Socio Economic Status (SES) scores generated using Census data on all residents in an SA1.

Based on experience of Stats NZ (Stats NZ, 2018a) in the lead up to its March 2018 Census, the final 2018 NZ Census educational address question was very simple and collected information on:
• Name of pre-school, school or other place of education
• Campus and/or suburb
• City, town or district

Online submission note: [see Stats NZ 2018 Census Q 20 image on
page 6 of attached PDF version of this ATDAN submission]
(Stats NZ, 2018b)

Testing found that respondents were very likely to understand the educational institution question, know the answer to such questions and to be able to answer quickly.

Non-response in the NZ Census Test (April 2017) for educational institution name was very low, and for city was reasonably low. It should be possible to determine the geographic location of most educational institutions with the suburb missing.

Analysis indicated that this information can be successfully collected for pre-schoolers as well as for school and tertiary students.

Footnotes:
Stats NZ. (2018a). 2018 Census: Design of forms. Retrieved from Stats NZ: https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/2018-census-design-of-forms

Stats NZ. (2018b). New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings. Individual form Tuesday 6 March 2018. Retrieved from Stats NZ Store House: https://cdm20045.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p20045coll2/id/713/rec/3

The existing Australian Census question already asks ‘What type of educational institution is the person attending?’ The possible responses include Preschool, Infants/Primary school (Government, Catholic, Other non-government), Secondary school (Government, Catholic, Other non-government), Tertiary Institution (TAFE, University or higher, Other). There is a trend towards schools increasing the diversity of year levels that they offer, that is, a trend toward schools providing for both primary and secondary year levels. The proposed revised question may be easier and more acceptable for respondents to answer correctly.

A question on the 2021 Census form relating to place of education would likely be similar to the place of work question, meaning respondents would be familiar with the type of question asked and could easily respond without the need to provide detailed explanations. Also, the revised POEP question would only be asked where there is a person attending school or any other education institution.

Based on experience of Stats NZ (Stats NZ, 2018a), non-response in their 2018 NZ Census Test (April 2017) for educational institution name was very low, for city was reasonably low. It should be possible to determine the geographic location of most educational institutions with the suburb missing.

Analysis indicated that this information can be successfully collected for pre-schoolers as well as for school and tertiary students.

Footnote:
Stats NZ. (2018a). 2018 Census: Design of forms. Retrieved from Stats NZ: https://www.stats.govt.nz/methods/2018-census-design-of-forms

The collection of data on education institution name and location will require just one question. The topic will not require a lengthy instruction or explanation as respondents are very likely to know the answer to a question on education institution name and location, and to be able to answer quickly. The amount of space required on the Census form for this modification of Question 25 would be similar to that currently used.

The name and location of the education institution attended could be coded using a database compiled from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and/or the Australian Department of Education and Training (for government and non-government P-12 schools), National Register for Training in Australia (for RTOs), Universities Australia, TAFEQld, TAFENSW and so on. The coding database could possibly contain as a minimum: institution name, campus/suburb, city, state, type (government, Catholic, other non-government), year level range (Preschool, P-12, TAFE, Uni), latitude and longitude. It could probably have full street address details as well. The database may be able to use the same structure as the database ABS uses for Workplace Address coding with additional field/s for institution type coding.

Places of education would have higher locational determinability than places of work.

It is envisaged it would add marginal cost to processing as it would use the same coding capability and databases ABS uses for workplace address coding with additional information on institution type.

There will be a continuing need for data on the topic in subsequent Censuses to assist in evidence based transport modelling, planning and policy development.

There will also potentially be continuing need for the data to support requirements of education funding allocation models and for education infrastructure planning.

While some STAs have previously collected data on place of education as part of household travel surveys, household travel surveys target a small (for example, less than 1%) sample of the population by place of residence which is not at the level of spatial detail as the Census would be able to provide, and never covers the whole of the state.

It is possible to use respective state education agency information only for government school enrolments (and student residences at SA1 level) but non-government schools are a significant data gap and growing. There has been an increase in the share of students attending non-government schools. In Queensland, for example, between 2006 and 2016, this increased from 38.5% to 39.3% for secondary; 28.7% to 28.9% for primary and from 32.7% to 33.3% for all schools.

It is understood that the Australian Department of Education and Training (DET) has P-12 student residential address or location data for each school and that information is used by the Australian Government to decide how much money each school should get. From the DET website - “A school's SES score is calculated using student residential addresses and a socio-economic index based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census of Population and Housing (Census) data.” (Department of Education and Training, 2018)

If the Australian Government were to make place of residence (PoR) by place of education (PoE) data for P-12 education institutions it may provide some of the required information albeit only for primary, secondary and combination schools. What would still be missing is PoR by PoE for post-secondary students. Another shortcoming of the DET data is that it would not provide nor be able to be linked to information on Method of Travel to Education (MTEP). Nor would it be able to be directly or accurately linked to household level social-economic data from the Census. This is a alluded to in a late 2017 research paper on the funding arrangements methodology for DET (Department of Education and Training, 2017).

Footnotes:
Department of Education and Training. (2017). The Socio-Economic Status (SES) score methodology used in recurrent school funding arrangements. Retrieved from Department of Education and Training: https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/forinfo-vu-ses_score_research_paper-webaccessible_1.pdf

Department of Education and Training. (2018). What is the Schooling Resource Standard and how does it work? Retrieved from Department of Education and Training: https://www.education.gov.au/what-schooling-resource-standard-and-how-does-it-work

STA first preference for alterations to Census content is as follows:
• Modify Question 25 from ‘Type of Educational Institution Attending’ to ‘Place of Education’
• Add new question ‘Method of Travel to Education’
• Retain existing Question 54 ‘Number of Motor Vehicles’

Modifying 2016 Census Question 25 “What type of educational institution is the person attending” to ask respondents for the name of the pre-school, school or other place of education including its campus and/or suburb, city/town should occur no matter what the priorities might be for any other alterations to content.

This modification, used in conjunction with an education place type and address database compiled from official sources, would potentially allow more accurate coding of TYPP (Type of Educational Institution Attending). It would also allow introduction of a new spatial classification for Place of Education (POEP) with high locational determinability.

This would finally provide both the Transport and Education portfolios in all levels of government with comprehensive student catchment information that could be more accurately linked with Census socio-economic data for education related funding allocation, and planning and provision of transport and education infrastructure and services.

The amount of space required on the Census form for this modification would be similar to that currently used for Question 25. Online submission note: [see images of sample 2016 and mock 2021 questions on page 12 of attached PDF version of this ATDAN submission]

STA second preference for alterations to Census content is as follows:
• Modify Question 25 from ‘Type of Educational Institution Attending’ to ‘Place of Education’
• Alternate between new question ‘Method of Travel to Education’ and existing Question 54 ‘Number of Motor Vehicles’

The proposed Census content changes are supported by all ATDAN members.

Support has also been confirmed from:
• The Australian Department of Education and Training - The department is supportive of the ATDAN proposal and may be able to help with construction of the questions involved, especially around institution locations.
• The Department of Education, Western Australia – inclusion of the proposed “Journey to Education “ data question will:
o Enable additional analysis of resident/parental behaviour in the important work of developing and reviewing school local-intake areas which form the basis for school enrolment eligibility at public schools, particularly where distances are an issue in determining boundaries in urban areas where transport is generally by private vehicle, foot or bicycle having this data will be highly valuable.
o Assist in ensuring safe and practical traffic management planning as part of developing new schools and managing existing schools. Such transportation data will better inform designers and planners of the potential density and type of vehicular traffic expected in and around a school.
• The Department of Education, Queensland – supports the proposal, conditional on all existing data outputs for education-related questions and jurisdictional access to the data required for planning and reporting will remain.
• Western Australian Local Government Association – inclusion of the Journey to Education data into the Census could provide additional tangible data to be used by the WA Local Government Sector. The uses are listed as the 4 sub-dot points in Assessment Criteria 1 above.