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The retention rate for high school students staying on to Year 12 has risen for the first time since 2017, says the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
And non-public schools recorded a 25.1 percent rise in enrolment numbers over a five-year period as public enrolments almost flatlined (1 per cent).
The years 7/8 to Year 12 retention rate rose from 79.1 per cent in 2023 to 79.9 per cent in 2024, according to ABS data, and was higher for females (83.5 per cent) than males (76.5 per cent).
The retention rate for Year 10 to 12 students rose 1.2 per cent to 79.9 per cent from 2023 to 2024.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Year 7/8 students staying on to Year 12 also rose from 55.9 per cent in 2023 to 56.7 per cent in 2024.
Cassandra Elliott, ABS head of education statistics, says: “The overall growth in the proportion of students staying from Year 10 until Year 12 was largely driven by students at government schools which was up 1.3 percentage points to 74.3 per cent in 2024.
“This compared to a 0.9 percentage point rise to 88.1 per cent for students at non-government schools.”
TEACHER RATIO
Schools also had 320,377 full-time equivalent teaching staff in 2024, a 2.8 per cent rise from 2023.
“With a rise in the number of teaching staff, the average student-to-teacher ratio across schools fell to a new low since 2006 of 12.9 students to one teacher,” Elliott says.
“Independent schools had the lowest student-to-teacher ratios with 11.7 students to one teacher. Meanwhile, government and catholic schools had 13.1 and 13.3 students to one teacher respectively.”
ENROLMENTS
Total school enrolments reached over 4.1 million across 9653 schools in 2024, a rise of 1.1 per cent since 2023, the ABS data shows.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school student enrolments grew 3.7 per cent on the previous year and account for 6.6 per cent of all students, the ABS says.
Its data shows that the highest annual enrolment growth in 2024 were in South Australia and Western Australia (2.2 per cent), Victoria (1.6 per cent) and Queensland (0.7 per cent). Only in Tasmania did the enrolment rate fall (-0.5 per cent).
Independent schools registered the biggest growth in student enrolments from 2019-24 with an 18 per cent increase; from 584,262 in 2019 to 692,271 in 2024.
But public schools accounted for more than half (63.4 per cent) of all enrolments last year (2.619 million out of 4.132 million). Independent school enrolments in 2024 were 16.8 per cent, just behind Catholic enrolments (19.9 per cent).
