A growing number of students across Australia are dropping out of school, a new report by the Mitchell Institute has found.

The trend, which see averages of about 26 percent of 19-year-old Australians, or about 81,199 students, dropping out of school, is considered alarming as students are the prospective workforce of any country.

The report, titled Education Opportunity in Australia 2015, was released on Monday and exposed the huge gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. It found that this gap leads to segregation with the poorer student getting left behind.

When it comes to social status, about 40 percent of the poorest 19-years-old are dropping out of school. This number decreases as the social status changes, and only 10 percent of the wealthiest leave school.

Professor Stephen Lamb, the lead author of the report, said that the effects of student disadvantage were stronger in Australia as compared to Canada and New Zealand. This is because while most socially disadvantaged students attend government schools (77.5 percent), total government expenditure for private schools actually increased to 107 percent between the years 1991 and 2000.

This makes funding for private schools more than twice as much as state schools at 52 percent, and the growth in budgets exceeds the growth in the number of enrolments.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Lamb saying that the country has yet to develop an egalitarian system when it comes to education as high levels of segregation in Australia, brought about by residential segregation and sector organisation of schools, are still rampant. These divisions tend to enforce patterns of inequality, which in turn strengthen differences in school performance.

The academic benchmarks for disadvantaged students are 20 percent lower than the rest of the population and they often skip a month of school more than wealthy students do annually.

However, not only are the disadvantaged students on the bottom of the list (28.4 percent of Australian year 7 students), they are also not meeting international standards in reading. The report also found that 10 percent of all Australian students fail to obtain a year 12 certificate or secure a job in adulthood, primarily because one in six year 7 students who are performing above average fail to complete year 12 or an equivalent.

The number of students in very remote areas who complete year 12 is also lower compared to students in major cities. There is a 43 percent completion rate in remote areas, versus 78 percent in major cities.

Indigenous students completing year 12 are at 44 percent, while non-indigenous students are at 75 percent.

Overall, nearly a quarter of 24-year-old Australians are not engaged in full-time education, training or even work.

A huge number of students not finishing year 12 is a “real cause for alarm,” Mitchell Institute Director Dr. Sara Glover told the SMH.

“If we are not equipping them well enough for that, this is a quarter of young talent wasted. For our economy, and for our future, we can't afford to do that," she said, adding that better support for disadvantaged students can be attained through offering more vocational opportunities.

While the alarming data is unfortunate news, the report is positive that all students can recover and gain ground in the future.

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