‘Public policy failure': number of public school students in Australia falls to record low

The Guardian

17-02-2025

The proportion of students enrolled in public schools has fallen to another record low, new data shows, placing Australia at risk of a 'full blown flight' from the sector.
Of the 45,008 students who enrolled at schools in 2024, only 5,419 went to government schools while 39,589 went to the private sector.
Overall, some 63.4% of students were enrolled in government schools in 2024, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released on Monday said, representing a drop of 0.6 percentage points since 2023 and six percentage points since 2000.
The decline comes amid an increase in independent school enrolments.
Over the five years to 2024, independent school enrolments surged 18.5%, while Catholic school enrolments increased by 6.6% and public school enrolments rose by just 1%.
The only states where enrolments to government schools grew in 2024 were Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia - all by less than 2%. At the same time, enrolments in independent schools grew by 3.9% nationwide, equivalent to 25,729 more students.
Greens spokesperson for schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, said every proportional increase in private school enrolments was a 'public policy failure'.
'We shouldn't sugar coat it,' she said. 'We are at risk of a full-blown flight of parents and kids out of a public system that is being left to rot, while money pours into the pockets of the richest private schools.'
Secondary school enrolments in government schools increased marginally in 2024, the data showed, by 0.9% or 9,731 more students, while non-government secondary school enrolments grew by 3.3% (25,418 more students).
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At primary schools, government school enrolments went backwards, declining by 0.3% (4,312 fewer students) while non-government primary enrolments grew by 2% (14,171 more students).
The convenor of Save Our Schools, Trevor Cobbold, said decades of 'massive under-funding of public schools', together with 'generous over-funding of private schools by governments', was taking its toll.
'As parents seek education advantage for their children they should carefully consider their choices,' he said.
'Research studies and the latest Pisa results show that private schools do not deliver better results than public schools after adjusting for family background and school composition.'
In New South Wales, independent school enrolments grew by a single year record of 8,547 students while government school enrolments fell by 5,511.
Independent schools have enrolled almost two-thirds of all the new students in NSW since 2000, and now educate 19.5% of students, up from 13.1% in 2000.
Association of Independent Schools NSW chief executive, Margery Evans, said the figures were 'remarkable', attributing much of the growth to low and mid-fee Christian, Islamic and Anglican schools, which cater to low to middle income families in outer Sydney.
'In spite of cost-of-living pressures, families still prefer their children to have an education that reflects their beliefs, values and philosophies,' Evans said.
'The sector's growth may well have been even higher were it not for enrolment caps … demand for places continues to exceed supply.'
Independent Schools Australia chief executive officer, Graham Catt, said the figures showed families were prepared to 'make significant sacrifices' for the education they believed was best for their children.
Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg, now a professor of educational leadership at the University of Melbourne, said Australia had a larger proportion of students in non-government schools than 'most other OECD countries'.
Sahlberg said school funding deals were 'necessary, but not sufficient' to improve the status of public education, adding it came alongside rapidly growing homeschooling rates, declining school attendance and weakening student engagement.
'This shift from government schools has promoted growing concentration of socio-educationally disadvantaged students in schools that have already high proportions of disadvantaged students,' he said.
'If this downward trend continues … departments of education should be worried.'
The ABS figures also showed the proportion of students staying in school until year 12 increased annually for the first time since 2017, and student-to-teacher ratios fell to a 2006 low of 12.9 students to one teacher.
About 79.9% of students stayed at school from year 7 until year 12, up from 79.1% the previous year, but still below a 2017 high of 84.8%.
The education minister, Jason Clare, described the figures as 'good news', but said there was 'a lot more to do'.
'We are starting to see things heading in the right direction for the first time in almost a decade,' he said.
There were 4.1 million students enrolled in 9,653 schools in 2024, a 1.1% rise on the previous year.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school student enrolments were up 3.7% on the previous year, and made up 6.6% of all school students.
Retention rates were 2.7 percentage points less than a decade ago (56.7% in 2024 compared with 59.4% in 2014).