15 October 2014

ACT public school enrolments continue to grow

| Canfan
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Enrolments in ACT public schools are continuing to grow, the 2014 ACT Public Schools Census released today shows.
“ACT families and students are continuing to choose our public schools, with an increase in enrolments of 2.9 per cent in August 2014 compared with August last year, and 9 per cent since August 2010,” Ms Burch said.

“This continuing growth reflects the high standard of our public education system and community confidence in our public schools.”

Key results include:

  • 42,236 students were enrolled in ACT public schools as at 1 August 2014, an increase of 1,189 students
  • public primary schools enrolments increased by 1,088 (4.3 per cent)
  • college enrolments increased by 158 (2.7 per cent)
  • high school enrolments decreased marginally by 57 (-0.6 per cent)
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student enrolments increased by 10.3 per cent from the previous year (146 students), and by 23.2 per cent (295 students) since August 2010
  • specialist school enrolments increased by 5.3 per cent in 2014, with students accessing special education programs at either mainstream or specialist schools representing 5.4 per cent of the ACT student population.

“We have a strong and successful public education system in the ACT where our focus is on providing the best possible education for every student,” Ms Burch said.

“These figures show that parents and carers hold a great deal of confidence in our public school system and see it as equipping their children with the skills needed for the future.”

The ACT School Census August 2014 is available at:
www.det.act.gov.au/publications_and_policies/publications_a-z/census

(Joy Burch Media Release)

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I agree, if you look through the census the statistical variation is anomalous and not significant at all. Without supporting evidence claiming public confidence is the reason for the marginal statistical increases is just ludicrous.You have to wonder if the education directorate could use statistics well enough to set a table.

pink little birdie2:43 pm 16 Oct 14

mr_pink said :

Primary schools will continue to burst and high schools decline because parent’s faith in public education only runs to a point – year six. After that many send their kids off to private schools and for good reasons. A key one is that the ACT primary school system has its problems but the high school system can be seen becoming more and more a morale-sapping, socio-demographically unequable, poorly administered sludge.

Interesting that it returns for years 11 & 12 though (60.7% of college students attend a public college in the ACT) according to the article in the Canberra times.

Primary schools will continue to burst and high schools decline because parent’s faith in public education only runs to a point – year six. After that many send their kids off to private schools and for good reasons. A key one is that the ACT primary school system has its problems but the high school system can be seen becoming more and more a morale-sapping, socio-demographically unequable, poorly administered sludge.

I support public schools, but wouldn’t this simply be a reflection of the baby boom over the last ten years or so?

preschools are also booked out. Perhaps they could open a new preschool room in one of these high schools with spare space? Or offer music or art classes to some of the primary schools who have had to turn those rooms into classrooms and no longer offer those things?

High schools may be level pegging now, but primary schools are growing out of control. It will only be a couple of years before all those primary schoolers start needing to go to high school. It would be insane to close a school now.

so someone will probably start doing it.

Well said, Mr T.

In isolation, these statistics mean nothing.

Even with all these increased enrollments we still see schools like UC Kaleen High at 28% capacity and it’s neighbour school Melba at 32%. I spent enough time in an ACT school to know if you closed down one you’d still have 40% capacity left over for all that enrollment growth of minus 0.6%. We’d have several million dollars more to spend a year on one good school rather than the twaddle of North Belconnen as to suffer now.

Now, somebody truly trying to communicate some truthful ideas about these statistics would look at
ACT population growth
demographic changes
and come up with the increase in real terms.
(Also notice the increases are called “increases” while the decrease is called a “marginal decrease” – who writes this propaganda?)

So, I don’t know how ACT demographics are changing, but with an average growth since 2010 of 2% (larger earlier, smaller later), you can clearly see that an “increase of 9% since 2010” is in real terms only a *marginal* increase of maybe even less than 0.7%.
Maybe even less than that if the “9%” is a bit of a fudge.

Maybe the ACT education system is hoping it failed to teach some basic number analysis to the intended audience of this propaganda?

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