Enrolments at public schools are falling despite rising children numbers whereas enrolments at private schools are increasing.
Enrolments fell by 0.6 per cent in 2022, a steeper decline than in 2021 when they fell by 0.2 per cent, the ABS statistics released on Wednesday show.
There are now more than 1.4 million Australian students or 35.6 per cent at private schools and about 2.6 million pupils at government schools.
An education expert says Australia is an international outlier, with “about twice as many children going to non-governmental schools as the OECD average”
There is probably a slight difference here in that the state funds all children as all parents are taxpayers so even private schools get some government money to educate children, the schools fees are on top of that but are probably not as high as they would be without government funding. I don’t know the situation in the UK - I attended a pretty average Grammar School
My kids went to private primary school, two of them then went to the local public high school while one went on to a private high school.
I can’t say that the education was better or worse at either, they were the ones that chose where they went. However one of them did nothing at high school and I threatened to send him to a private Catholic high school which had a great educational record but very strict rules, the threat of this did buck his ideas up a bit.
