Year 12 grads hit record but falling short of target

A RECORD number of Australians completed Year 12 last year, but it's not enough, a report by the COAG Reform Council reveals.

A RECORD number of young Australians completed Year 12 last year, but it's still not enough, a new report by the COAG Reform Council reveals.

The report is an update on COAG's commitment to have 90 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds possessing a secondary school graduation qualification by 2015.

The deputy head of the secretariat at the COAG Reform Council, Michael Frost, said there was still a long way to go, with current trends set to fall well below expectations.

"This is kind of a halfway point on the agreement. Overall we are increasing Year 12 or equivalent attainment, but not fast enough at this point to meet the 2015 target," Mr Frost said.

Some states are meeting or exceeding their targets while others show much slower growth in qualifications.

The Northern Territory and South Australia have improved by almost 5 per cent each since 2007 while Tasmania, which has the second lowest number of qualifications nationwide, grew only 1.86 per cent.

Only the ACT has reached the target of 90 per cent, the next closest being Victoria on 89 per cent and NSW on 86 per cent.

Western Australia was third highest achiever in the COAG report, qualification numbers growing by 2.74 per cent.