When one considers education access and equity in New South Wales one tends to think of the divide between private and public primary & high schools.
After all the top private schools such as Knox Grammar (Wahroonga), Sydney Grammar (Darlinghurst), Barker (Hornsby), Scots (Bellevue Hill) and Pymble Ladies (Pymble) have been known to bank more money in fees, federal & state funding and donations from wealthy donors than the Gross Domestic Product of some small island states.
Knox Grammar alone brought in $536,440,456 across five years up to 2021.
However, there is another level of inequality and that is the divide between public schools based on the socio-economic status of the geographical catchment from which students are drawn and/or whether those schools are classed as selective.
While public schools do not have the same ability to set fees as private schools and do not attract the same level of government funding, they do generate levels of ‘donations’
which indicate some level of advantage vs disadvantage.
NSW public school voluntary general contributions totalled $27,908,197.31 in 2022.
The top 12 public school general contributions were received by:
Sydney Boys High School — $1,038,474.50*
Balgowlah Heights Public School — $489,314.15
Carlingford High School — $437,230.57
North Sydney Boys High School — $368,278.94*
Chatswood High School — $356,701.39
Ryde Secondary College — $355,300.36
James Ruse Agricultural High School — $330,273.608*
Cherrybrook Technology High School — $306,667.75
Killarney Heights High School — $297,845.28
Sydney Girls High School — $295,009.83*
Baulkham Hills High School — $230,761.50*
Epping Boys High School — $227,940.62
NOTE: * denotes fully selective state school
For highest and lowest an estimated breakdown of donation share per student would $1,713.65 for Sydney Boys High School and $175.33 per student for Epping Boys High School.
Not up to private school annual budgetary standards but there is a little more towards the school curriculum and extra-curricula activities.
It’s another story elsewhere in the state…..
Based on voluntary general donations raised by parents and carers in 12 schools in the NSW Northern Rivers region:
Grafton High School — $18,201.20
South Grafton High School — $7,611.25
Grafton Public School — $5,435.00
South Grafton Public School — $465.00
Lismore Heights Public School — $1,740.00
Lismore Public School — $105.00
Lismore South Public School — $30.00
Tweed River High School — $9,203.65
Tweed Heads Public School — $457.00
Tweed Heads South Public School — $52.00
Ballina Coast High School — $12,134.00
Murwillumbah East Public School — $5,430.00
For highest and lowest on the Northern Rivers list Grafton High School parental & carer ‘donations’ would equal around $22 dollars per student and for Lismore South Public School it is 0.12 cents a student in 2022.
It should come as no surprise, given the poor state funding model and the refusal of successive federal governments to contribute meaningfully to public school funding, that none of the four Northern Rivers public high schools listed in this post had students in the Top 6 (higher score) rankings for 2022 Higher School Certificate scores. While only two of the twelve public high schools in relatively affluent geographic catchments had students within the Top 6 rankings.
Of the five rich private schools identified in the second paragraph of this post only one of those high schools had students within Top 6 rankings for 2022 Higher School Certificate scores.
Across all NSW high schools the Top 10 with the highest success rate in the Higher School Certificate appear to have all been state selective or private schools.
It seems that affluent post codes or access to fully selective government schools may still have an inordinate influence when it comes to student outcomes in the final years of schooling.
