The number of Australian children attending private high schools in Australia is growing.
In 2012, 63 per cent of high school students attended public schools, while 34 per cent attended private schools.
These days, the proportion of high school students in government schools has dropped to 57 per cent, compared to 41 per cent who attend non-government schools.
But are private schools better?
Private schools are better funded
According to data from the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, the government provides about $14,000 in funding per public school student.
Private schools receive less government funding per student – about $12,000 for Catholic school students and $10,000 for Independent (or other non-government) schools.
However, private schools charge additional fees on top of that.
This year, some schools in New South Wales and Victoria cracked the $45,000 mark.
The most expensive school in Australia, Geelong Grammar, will charge $46,344 in tuition and day boarding fees for senior students in Years 10-12.
In Sydney, Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School is charging $44,224 to cover tuition for Year 12 students, and a technology levy of $820 – that's $45,044 in total.
So, some non-government schools may have the finances to provide better resources – like gymnasiums and libraries – or extra-curricular activities for their students.
But will all that extra money mean higher academic achievement?
Academic performance depends more on your postcode – not your school
Both Australian and international studies show that when you account for socio-economic factors, academic results from public and private schools don't differ too much.
A 2022 study in the Australian Educational Researcher looked at whether there was a performance gap between public and private school students in standardised literacy and numeracy tests.
The authors found:
"The results demonstrate that private schools are not associated with systematically higher average student achievement in primary or secondary school, nor with steeper trajectories of reading and numeracy from Year 3 to Year 9."
Similar findings came out of an international OECD Report too.
Some parents believe that sending their child to a private school – particularly in their senior years – means the child will perform better in the all-important final year exams and achieve a high ATAR ranking.
That's not an unreasonable assumption – more than 75 per cent of schools with the top HSC results in NSW were non-government schools, for example.
Esperanza Vera-Toscano, is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne who worked on the HILDA survey, where she found that private high school enrolments are indeed increasing.
However, she says the evidence shows no significant difference between the academic performance of private and public school students — once you account for socio-economic factors.
"Quite likely, it is the family status that determines which type of children go to private schools, and this is normally very highly correlated with very high educational attainment of the parents, and children belonging to better off families – this is the reason why private schools perform better," Dr Vera-Toscano says.
That is, if the child of a "better off" family went to a public school instead, their results would be exactly the same.
Glenn Fahey, director of the education program at the Centre for Independent Studies, agrees.
"One of the constraints that we have in this debate is that it's often framed as a public versus private debate, but it's really a postcode debate," Mr Fahey says.
"There are a lot more similarities between a local government school and a local non-government school, than there is between a government school in a less advantaged area and a government school in a highly advantaged area."
"So, the key difference when we look at educational advantage and disadvantage is once based on postcode – not on school sectors."
So why are parents paying so much more for private education?
Private schools offer choice – but is that better?
Apart from academic performance, a parent can choose to send their child to a private school for many reasons.
Some parents believe private schools give their kids a chance to make the right connections that will help them later in life.
Others may think a private school has better resources and facilities given the amount they pay in fees.
Paul Kidson is an education academic who has also been the principal of a few non-government schools.
"There are not a lot of countries that have a non-government sector as big as ours," Dr Kidson says.
"It's become such an ingrained part of the culture."
He says there's evidence private schools appeal to a middle-class aspiration: "I want something different than what I'm getting at my local government school."
But there are several reasons why families seek out private education, Dr Kidson explains.
"There might be an extensive range of extra-curricular activities at one school, there might be a particular history with the school – my mother went there, or my grandfather went there," he says.
"There might be a religious affiliation that is important to the family."
But some parents think all that choice is not necessarily a good thing.
Jane Caro, a board member of the Public Education Foundation, believes that a large non-government education sector increases inequality.
"We take all the middle class kids out of the public system and we basically create sinks of advantage and disadvantage," she says.
"Which is what we have done – we are residualising in our public education system so that it becomes a kind of welfare system of last resort for the poor."
There's also the anxiety parents face when choosing between public and private.
"One of the reasons we have very anxious parents is because we've turned parental choice into this Nirvana, which it isn't," Ms Caro explains.
"People have to make a choice between schools, between public and private, private and private, and that paralyses them and agonises them.
"And it makes people fight with one another about whether they've made the right choice."
But at the end of the day, it is a personal choice.
"The best approach to any academic success is going to be where students are actively engaged in positive, effective learning environments with families that are supportive and in clear partnership with the school," Dr Kidson says.
"And that happens across all sectors."
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