'Gain an advantage': More families choose private schools as new figures show public school drop

Enrolments in public schools dropped by 280 students between February 2023 and 2024, returning to the same overall level as 2020.

The decrease occurred only at the primary school level, with numbers climbing in the preschool, high school and college age groups.

The independent school sector grew strongly with a 3.4 per cent increase in the year to February 2024.

The Catholic school sector had modest overall growth of 0.7 per cent but had its largest gains in the preschool and Year 11 and 12 cohorts.

While 60 per cent of Canberra students were enrolled in the public school system, demographer at the Australian National University's Centre for social policy research Liz Allen said there was a growing desire to enrol children in non-government schools.

"Among the key factors that are being seen to be driving the increase in non-government school enrolments as a proportion include growing low-fee non-government schools ... and a desire for parents to invest in their children's education in order to get an advantage over others," she said.

"And that's enabled by the fact that on average families have fewer children."

An Education Directorate spokesman said Canberra families made enrolment decisions for a variety of reasons and a drop in public school enrolments was not cause for concern.

"Public primary school enrolment numbers reflect the slightly smaller cohorts now tracking through from the early years which are substantially consistent with lower Estimated Residential Populations (ERP) for those age groups," the spokesman said.

"Enrolment figures fluctuate over time and a short term modest decline in public school enrolments is not cause for concern - similar trends are being reported nationally, particularly given population projections anticipate future growth."

ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Association executive officer Veronica Elliott said the council expected the Strong Foundations literacy and numeracy initiatives and tightening of enrolment policies would provide parents confidence in selecting their local public school.

Dr Allen said enrolments in religious schools continued to grow despite the population becoming more secular.

"It's not as though parents are enrolling their children in non-government schools to enrich their children spiritually. It's to gain an advantage," Dr Allen said.

"Kids that go to public schools don't tend to have networking opportunities, like those that go to non-government schools. Non-government schools open doors for life."

Dr Allen said parents were weighing up the cost of sending a child to a public school and the cost of sending a child to low-fee non-government schools and believed the experience of private schooling was worth it, despite the rising cost of living.

"We need not be concerned that amid a cost-of-living crisis, families are paying school fees, because at the end of the day, they can afford it," she said.

"At the heart of this is an increasing class divide whereby parents who can afford it are sending their kids to be educated in non-government private schools to gain an advantage. And the reality is that those kids do gain an advantage."

Association of Independent Schools ACT executive director Andrew Wrigley said families were choosing to keep their children in non-government schools and cut down on other areas of spending amid the rising cost of living.

"Families place a great value in the education of their children," Mr Wrigley said.

"They're prioritising the quality of the education that they have deemed as is the best fit for their child and sticking with that."

Trinity Christian School principal Ian Hewitt said the growing proportion of families choosing non-government schools was a national trend.

"What I'm hearing both for our school and then nationally is families are looking for schools which support the values and beliefs that they have," Mr Hewitt said.

"They want the children to be cared for, they want to be supported, and they hear that's what we do."

Mr Hewitt said even families who did not have a faith appreciated the Christian values that were explicitly taught at the school.

Trinity Christian School added another early learning class this year and were considering expanding the early learning centre for next year.

He said there was higher demand for full-time places for three and four-year-olds with parents often needing to return to full-time work sooner to meet the tough economic conditions. Mr Hewitt said his school had a bumper attendance at its open day in May this year.

"Typically we'd get 100-ish to an open day. We had 260 people come through this year. So I think it shows us that there's so much interest and informed decisions being made by families as a long-term commitment that they're making."

Catholic systemic schools had an increase in preschoolers after it opened a new early learning centre at St Francis of Assisi Primary School in Calwell.

Director of Catholic Education in Canberra Goulburn Archdiocese Ross Fox said there were still vacancies in some Canberra Catholic schools.

"We've got a lot to be proud of. We do still have places in certain classrooms in certain schools across Canberra and we're working hard to make those available to parents who seek a Catholic education," he said.

Mr Fox said fluctuations in enrolments were monitored closely as school staffing levels and budgets reflected the number of students.

St Bede's Primary School in Red Hill has continued to grow enrolments after getting to the brink of closure in 2021.

He said Catholic Education was not considering closing any schools at this point.

"Some of our schools are subject to those predictable or normal demographic fluctuations," he said.

"We want to have a very long-term perspective and a long-term plan so that we're providing great learning opportunities and we're using every classroom and every across every school really well."

The ACT government's indicative land release for 2024-25 identified three sites that would be set aside for new non-government schools: one at Stromlo Reach in Denman Prospect, another at Kenny and a third site in the third stage of the Molonglo Valley subdivision.

Mr Fox said the Catholic system was very interested in getting further details on these sites.

"We're really interested in adding primary and potentially secondary capacity to serve in a long-term community in the Molonglo Valley," he said.