Publicly funded training places are disappearing in most states, according to new data.

The total number of students enrolled in publicly funded training across Australia for 2013 decreased 3.4 per cent to 1.88 million students from 1.94 million in 2012, the data, produced by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), shows.

The Australian vocational education and training statistics: Students and courses 2013 – preliminary data, provides a snapshot of training activity taken from an annual collection of student enrolments.

“NCVER’s preliminary analysis suggests the decrease in overall student numbers may be partly the result of the decline in apprenticeships”, said NCVER Managing Director Mr Rod Camm.

“We’ll examine this much more closely between now and July when we publish detailed data on publicly funded training activity”.

Only South Australia reported a rise in student numbers (up 16.3 per cent), whereas the number of students remained the same in Tasmania and declined in all the other states and territories.

“The increases reported in South Australia are most likely the result of the introduction of the ‘Skills for All’ program that took effect in July 2012”, Mr Camm said.

Just over half (51.8 per cent) of all students were enrolled in Certificates III and IV in 2013, similar to 2012. However, more students enrolled in a Certificate I qualification last year, up 8.6 per cent to 101,000 students from 93,000 in 2012.

Reflecting the drop in student numbers, hours of delivery also declined in all state and territories except South Australia in 2013.

NCVER says it will release detailed data on public training activity in July.