Jack Waterford talks of “parents voting with their feet” in the drift to the private system (Canberra Times, “Lessons in learning”, July 22, Panorama, p2). This is not a reflection on the public education system in the ACT, but of the availability of private education and Canberra’s relative affluence.
The ACT has the highest proportion of non-government schools in the country. The non-government primary sector in the ACT is dominated by Catholic schools which comprise 22% of all primary schools. This is also the highest percentage in the country and has been for more than 20 years. Other religious schools make up 9% of primary schools, and other independent primary schools are only 3%.
A national survey conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 2004, found that one third of Government school parents would send their children to a private school if they could afford it. The ACT is much wealthier than the rest of the country (average weekly earnings are 25% higher than the national figure).
The 2004 Sensis Consumer Report found that, for private school parents, the overwhelming reason for their choice of school was religion.
So, in the ACT almost a third of primary schools are religious, the population is wealthier and the most common reason for sending your child to a non-government school is religion. Closing Government schools will not change these underlying realities, so can we all stop pretending that school closures will boost the percentage of kids in Government schools?
Update: Published in the Canberra Times, 25th July.
