Some areas of Australia are seeing a decline in public school enrolments. Is it inevitable that others follow?

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If you grew up in the Australian education system, chances are you are one of the majority of former students who were publicly educated. However, this majority which was once as large as three-quarters of students (75.8%) in 1956 has gradually shrunk over the past few decades to just under two-thirds of students (62.8%) in 2025 [Australian Bureau of Statistics 2026].

This gradual shift in enrolment share has been linked to government policy that allowed private schools to be opened in areas with adequate public school capacity, the emergence of lower-fee independent schools [Larson 2024] and inequitable funding access where “political commitment to making school funding more equitable has been largely absent” [Perry 2025].

Despite this shift, a growing Australian population has generally seen national public school enrolments continue to grow steadily. This has no longer been the case from 2020 onwards, where public school enrolments have plateaued admidst accelerated private schools growth.

Should we be concerned by a plateau?

A plateau at the national level suggests that about the same number of students are joining the public education system each year through kindergarten enrolment or movement from private schools as those leaving through school completion or movement to private schools. This is not concerning, but hides that some areas of Australia are already seeing a decline in public school enrolments, while other areas show resilient growth.

It is important we understand where declines are happening given regional and remote areas, where schools are more sparsely located, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of a school enrolment decline. Enrolment declines reduce funding and staff entitlements, can increase student-to-teacher ratios, and in extreme cases lead to school closures. It is also important to identify where public school enrolments are growing and explore policies driving this growth.

The latest enrolment by remoteness data [ABS 2026] captures 2025 public and private school enrolments for Major City, Inner Regional, Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote areas of states and territories, which is comparable back to 2023 given remoteness classifications. This lets us see how public and private school enrolments have changed in this two year period and examine how and why these changes differ across remoteness areas or states and territories.

These differences are explained in the guided visualisation below, which includes all remoteness areas of states and territories which had consistent census recording practices and sufficiently large enrolments to prevent exaggerated growth rates. This excluded Tasmania and some low population areas of other states.

Continue scrolling for a guided visualisation ↓

This bubble plot compares how public and private school enrolments have changed in the last two years across Australian states and territories and remoteness areas.

Each bubble represents a remoteness area within a state or territory, with larger bubbles indicating the area had a larger number of student enrolments in 2025.

The horizontal and vertical position of the centre of the bubbles shows the growth rate of private school and public school enrolments respectively in the area from 2023 to 2025.

All areas saw private school enrolments grow, as shown by all bubbles sitting to the right of the black vertical axis. Bubbles above the black horizontal axis saw growth in public enrolments while those below saw a decline.

All areas saw greater growth in private school enrolments than public school enrolments. This is illustrated by all bubbles sitting below the black diagonal line representing equal public and private school enrolment growth.

Major City areas have almost three-quarters (73.6%) of all enrolments. Major cities generally see the fastest population growth, with WA, Vic and SA major cities all seeing growth in both public and private enrolments.

As the state with the most major city enrolments, the decline in NSW major city public enrolments is notable and may suggest not just a sector shift but a shift outside of major cities.

Inner Regional areas have about one-sixth (17.1%) of students. Private enrolments grew at least 5% in inner regional locations of all states, with Vic and WA notably seeing public enrolments grow by about 1% amongst declines in other states.

Outer Regional areas are home to 7.5% of enrolments. The public enrolment growth in SA of about 2% was outpaced by a private school growth of about 7% but is notable amongst general public enrolment decline in outer regional areas.

Qld which has the most outer regional students saw the largest sector shift, with public school enrolments declining about 4% amidst private school growth.

Remote areas only have 1.1% of enrolments. SA and WA are again states which saw a growth in public enrolments, however this was about 1% compared to private school growth of about 10% or more.

Very Remote areas have only 0.7% of enrolments and schools in these areas in decline are some of the most vulnerable.

WA very remote areas are closest to parity in public and private school growth rates of all areas visualised. While this is a small population, understanding what drove this growth may provide direction for addressing decline in other regional and remote areas.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Schools, 2025, Table 46a (FTE students by remoteness, 2023–2025).

Is an Australia-wide public school enrolment decline inevitable?

Within the scope of the data analysed, we do not have the answer to this question. However, the data tells us that while New South Wales major cities and some regional and rural areas are already seeing a decline in public school enrolments, states such as Victoria and Western Australia defied the patterns of other states in the same remoteness areas and may provide a case study on how targeted investment can address public enrolment declines.

The Victorian Government’s investment of “more than $1.6 billion” since 2019 [Victorian Government 2026] and the Western Australia Government’s $44.1 million Regional Attraction and Retention Incentive [Department of Education WA 2026] have both targeted attraction and retention of a quality teacher workforce. The WA Government’s specific targeting of regional schools appears to be driving the growth of public enrolments in regional and remote areas that are mostly seeing declines in other states.

Given the time needed to implement these programs in other states and territories, and the pace of decline already being seen in public schools in many areas, it is vital that action be taken now to address current and potential future decline. With targeted action, it does not have to be inevitable that public schools see a decline in enrolments, and the accompanying decline in quailty that this may present.

Australia has long touted itself as a nation of educational choice, however this relies not only on the health of private schools, but public schools too. Therefore, we must learn from those public schools already in good health and give all parents the choice to provide their children with one of the universal equalisers - public education.

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2026, Schools, 2025, Table 43a: Full-time equivalent (FTE) students, 2006-2025 and Table 46a: Full-time equivalent (FTE) students, 2023–2025, ABS, viewed 13 April 2026, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/education/schools/latest-release.

Department of Education WA 2026, Attraction and retention incentive for remote and regional schools, Government of Western Australia, viewed 21 April, https://www.education.wa.edu.au/attraction-and-retention-incentive-for-remote-and-regional-schools.

Larsen, S 2024, ‘More Australian families are choosing private schools – we need to understand why’, The Conversation, 21 October, viewed 19 April 2026, https://theconversation.com/more-australian-families-are-choosing-private-schools-we-need-to-understand-why-242791.

Perry, LB 2025, ‘Tensions undermining equitable school funding: insights from Australia’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 56–73, viewed 20 April 2026, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220620.2024.2370359.

Victorian Government 2026, Ensuring a strong, sustainable and supported school workforce, viewed 21 April 2026, https://www.vic.gov.au/ensuring-strong-sustainable-and-supported-school-workforce.

Attribution of inspiration and AI Assistance

This visualisation utilised DATA5002 course lecture notes and lab materials. For the creation of the bubble plot, I adapted the basic bubble plot example the R graph gallery. One of the scrollytelling articles from the UK Office for National Statistics course reading provided a great inspiration for the kind of highlighting and labelling transitions that can be achieved to incorporate a bubble plot.

This visualisation was implemented using assistance from both ChatGPT and Gemini. I used both ChatGPT and Gemini to construct a template for a scrollytelling article based on my wireframe and plot R code, which provided the CSS and Javascript portions of the RMarkdown file. As I modified the template to bring it closer the design principles of my visualisation, I used ChatGPT and Gemini to assist with adding or editing features as I desired. The written sections are my own analysis and AI was only a editing aid for the written section, with ZoteroBib used for refencing, supported by ChatGPT and Gemini AI for specific UNSW Harvard referening.