The charts show what Australian school leavers did immediately after leaving secondary school. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The pie charts compare

three

activities that Australian

students

pursued right after they left their secondary schools in the

three

years 1980, 1990 and 2000.

It is clear that

pursuing

further

education and working were the two main choices for Australian

students

while

unemployment played a minor part in all the

three

mentioned years mentioned. Working after finishing school was the only option for them that increased in popularity during the period. Among the

three

destinations, the number of unemployed

students

was the least at only 10% of the total graduates in 1980.

Although

this

saw an increase to 12% in 1990, it fell back to 8% in 2000. Meanwhile, continuing higher education and taking a job took turns in order of being the most popular option for school leavers. In detail, half of all

students

leaving secondary school decided higher academic pursuit to be their first preference in 1980 but

this

choice became less attractive in the following years with 38% and 37% continuing their

further

studies in 1990 and 2000, respectively.

By contrast

, only 40% of

students

graduating from secondary schools took a job right away in 1980 but

this

proportion increased to 50% in 1990 and reached a peak of 55% in the final year.