It can suddenly become important, when immigrating to Australia, to know where your children will be in their school years, to see how different it will be for them, and what post school choices are available. The School years are divided as follows:

Preschool education starts when a child is 5 years old.

Primary school begins at age 6 and is a general elementary programme and continues for 6-7 years.

Secondary education starts in Year 7 or 8.

Students sit a year 12 exam to continue into higher education. The current leaving age for each state is 16 yrs for Western Australia, 15 yrs for the Northern Territory, 15 yrs for New South Wales, 16 yrs for Tasmania, 16 yrs for Victoria, 15 yrs for Queensland and 16 yrs for South Australia. There are two main types of Tertiary education programmes:

Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Universities and other higher education institutions. VET is competency-based and offers a programmes under the National Training Framework ( NTF ). Registered training organisations include: TAFE institutes, private training and assessment organisations, enterprises, universities, schools and adult education providers throughout Australia.