‘Massive underfunding’ blamed as students enrolled in Australian public schools falls to new low

‘Massive underfunding’ blamed as students enrolled in Australian public schools falls to new low As thousands more students head to private schools, advocates hope new government funding deals might draw families back to public sector Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast In Sharryn Brownlee’s experience, it’s when their kids reach the final years of primary school that a lot of parents start to ask one another the same question. “Where are you going to send your kids to high school? Public or private?” she said. For Brownlee, the president of the New South Wales Central Coast Parents and Citizens Association (P&C), her decision was a no-brainer. “You think, why would I pay all this money for them to go out of their zone, to have friends that don’t live near them, when you can just as easily go local [to a public school] and be proud of where you are,” she said. Parents like Brownlee, however, appear to be becoming rarer. The percentage of students enrolled in public schools has fallen to another record low , as thousands of students fled the system in favour of the private sector, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday. Over the past 10 years, enrolments in independent schools grew at more than six times the rate of government schools, which went backwards last year for the first time since 2022, Guardian Australia analysis shows. In total, 4.1 million students were enrolled in schools across Australia in 2025, with 62.8% of them enrolled in government schools, a decline on 63.4% the previous year. About 20% of students were enrolled in the Catholic system and 17.2% in independent schools, which recorded a combined increase of 21% between 2021 and 2025. At the same time, government school enrolments dropped by 0.4%. The number of students enrolling in government schools experienced a decrease of 0.2% in 2025, with 6,109 fewer students in the public system c...