4221.0 - Schools, Australia, 2014 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 05/02/2015   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All

This document was added or updated on 19/03/2015.

MEDIA RELEASE
19 March 2015
Embargo: 11.30 am (Canberra Time)
38/2015
School enrolments continue to rise

The number of students in Australia's schools increased by 1.3 per cent from 3,645,519 to 3,694,101 between 2013 and 2014, a report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has found.

“However, the growth is not spread evenly across primary and secondary school levels, and government and non-government sectors,” said Patrick Corr from the ABS.

"Increasingly, Australian secondary school students are turning to the non-government sector for their education.

"In the government sector, the increase was entirely due to growth in students at the primary level of education, with numbers of secondary student remaining largely unchanged.

"In contrast, non-government sector student numbers grew at both primary and secondary levels. It will be interesting to follow these trends in the next few years particularly with primary student numbers likely to increase considerably in this time following the increase in births in Australia over the last decade."

Nationally, between 2013 and 2014, the number of full-time equivalent teaching staff increased by 1.3 per cent. When combined with the increasing number of students, the student to teaching staff ratio was largely unchanged at 13.9 students per staff.

"While student numbers increased, the number of schools remained largely static," said Mr Corr. "There were ten less government schools and six more non-government schools, a net reduction of four schools.

"In the last five years the number of primary schools in Australia with more than 800 students has increased by over 100. "

"An increasing number of students (84 per cent) who started secondary school in Year 7/8 continued through to Year 12 in 2014. This is an increase of two percentage points over 2013.

"For males, the rate was 80 per cent, while the rate for females was 87 per cent. While this is a significant gap (seven percentage points), it's worth noting that 10 years ago the gap was eleven percentage points."

Further information can be found in Schools, Australia 2014 (cat. no. 4221.0) available for free download from the ABS website https://www.abs.gov.au

Media notes:

  • When reporting ABS data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or ABS) must be attributed as the source.
  • Media requests and interviews - contact the ABS Communications Section on 1300 175 070.