[Unistats] stats reporting - of apples and oranges

[Roni McDowell]

Dear John and Colleagues,

As Ted has so clearly explained, the two sets of figures are quite different, particularly at an institution such as RMIT, where we have a huge semester two intake of international students both on and offshore.

We have lobbyed previously to get DEST to move to the current 31 August sepcification, which is a much better representation of the load for the year than the 31 March date.  The EE has been out of sync with the rest of the reporting (including the profile tables) for some time now.

Given the current policy environment, I believe it is unfortunate that the AV-CC analysis suggests a huge increase from 2001 to 2002 in some areas (eg international in Victoria).  The tables should be reissued, using the actual August figures for 2001, compared with the EE for 2002.  However I assume this is now a dead issue and the papers wouldn't care anyway.

I hope to see some or all of you in Canberra tomorrow (or in some cases today).

cheers
Roni



Roni McDowell
Head, Statistics and Reporting Unit
Planning Group
RMIT Collection Coordinator
RMIT University
Phone:  03 9925 4077
Mobile: 0417554033
Fax: 03 9639 1941