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PRIVATE SCHOOL NUMBERS UP 21.5 %

According to a report released by the ABS – Parents are turning their backs on a public education for their children.

The annual Schools Australia report, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, showed the number of students at government schools has risen by just 1.2 per cent since 1996, Fairfax newspapers reported.

This compared with a 21.5 per cent rise in the number of pupils at independent and Catholic schools.

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the figures were a wake-up call to the states.

“Parents are choosing to pay school fees at non-government schools because of the quality of education provided,” she said.

But Victorian Education Minister John Lenders, who Fairfax says sent his children to private schools, said the results were a demonstration of the federal government’s funding priorities.

In Victoria, the number of children at government schools bucked the national trend, rising by 3.7 per cent over the same period.

But in the ACT, the number of children at government schools dropped by 12.3 per cent in the decade to 2006 as private school enrolments rose by 14.2 per cent.

In South Australia, government school enrolments fell 7.7 per cent, while new private school student numbers increased 25.3 per cent.

Despite the changes, overall 66.8 per cent of Australia’s 3,368,036 full-time school students went to government schools.

This was down from 70.7 per cent in 1996.

Association of Independent Schools of Victoria chief executive Michelle Green said growth in private schools showed “more people are prioritising their children’s education”.

2006 HSC Performance Analysis

The two main tables compare 2006 HSC performance data using two methods:

The first report shows the number of credits earned by each school and a comparison with the 2005 results to identify improving performance ( or otherwise ) – these results however are obviously affected by the number of students enrolled and subject choices. 2006 HSC Credits earned by school

The second more detailed analysis show credits as a percentage of the number of students enrolled / exam attempts – a more accurate guide with less distrotion due to enrolment numbers and subject options amongst enrolled students. This report also includes comparison with 2005 results. 2006 HSC Credits earned vs exam attempts by school

Internet Search data shows dramatic increase in web based searching

Schoolseek are pleased to advise subscribers that we exceeded the magic 300,00 hits per month ( well regarded as a benchmark for site popularity ) with just over 312,000 hits on the site during November. With just under 10,000 unique visitors viewing 97,000 pages during the month – we are very pleased that our initial research which highlighted an undersupplied market – parents seeking the RIGHT school for thier child – was in fact correct.

Some of the statistics are very intersting in terms of marketing in schools – with not only a large increase in hits but also a large % of users viewing several pages and staying on the site for longer periods. In fact nearly 2,000 users spent more than 15 minutes browsing schools of interest !

The site is now highly ranked by major search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahho and is often now a first point of call for parents looking for information on schools. Interestingly a larger number of our visitors are international ( with visitors from UK, USA, Russia, Poland, Germany and Malaysia ) and the site is a logical starting point for any search for the RIGHT school for any child.

Parents want class teaching secular views of morality

MOST parents want a non-religious alternative to school scripture classes, a survey has found.

Of 280 parents surveyed for the Federation of Parents and Citizens’ Associations of NSW, 59 per cent thought it was “important” or “very important” that their child be given the option of attending a secular ethics-based class.

Parents said activities offered to children who did not attend scripture classes included watching videos, reading and supervised activities such as colouring in.

Seventy-nine per cent of parents said they would support their children being exposed to faiths other than their own.

Almost a quarter of parents said they would like to see the teaching of faiths other than Christianity introduced.

The publicity officer for the Federation of P&C Associations, Sharon-Roni Canty, said students not attending religious education were missing out on teaching that offered a moral grounding.

“Our survey shows that schools are not offering constructive activities that would engage the students who aren’t attending religious education,” she said.

The federation has been lobbying the State Government for an alternative to the teaching of morals in Christian-based scripture classes.

It will present the results of its survey to the Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, to build its case.

"Private Schools pull in richer families"

The Sydney Morning Herald article yesterday highlighted the “increasingly wealthy clientele” being attracted to private schools. This is despite the funding scheme that was designed to provide less money to “rich schools” and more to schools with poorer students. A review of the scheme is being held next week and is attracting some controversy as it is being held behind closed doors by the federal Department of Education with only private school lobby groups being invited to comment. Private school reps will ask for their funding to be maintained or increased to make them more accessible to low income families. Next weeks review is examining how the Government will distribute up to $28 billion to private schools over the next 4 years.

July Website Statistics

During July 2006 the site had over 121,000 hits and whilst about 73 % of these were from Australia, we also had hits from the UK, USA, Mexico, Netherlands, Hungary, China, Korea, France and many others. Of interest this month is the length of time users are spending on the site – people are not just visiting quickly but are spending considerable time searching through to find the right school for their child – in fact 29.5 % of visitors spent more than 5 minutes more than 800 people spending longer than 15 minutes ( as well as many repeat visitors ). By far the most popular page is the advanced search where users can select various search criteria to find the school that best suits them – in total, users viewed over 41,000 pages during July. Google, AskJeeves, Yahoo and NineMSN have also now indexed the site and so it is quickly becoming the easiest and most common web tool for locating the right school for your child.

Education Expo

Since the Education Expo ( nearly a month ago ) our site has seen a substantial increase in the number of hits and even more importantly in the amount of time people spend on the site – trying to find the right school for their child. Lots of visitors are spending up to 15 minutes ( and a couple a lot more ) using the advanced search filter to search through various school features and find the right school for their child.

The site has had over 35,000 hits in the first half of July and this shows that recent surveys that highlighted the massive increase in the use of the interent as the PRIMARY tool for directory style services were in fact quite correct.

We have had hits from as far afield as the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Poland, Turkey and Europe – many of our visitors are international parents who are relocating and looking for the most appropriate school here in Australia.

We have also had a large number of parents who are searching at primary school age – a reflection of the level of interest and also value placed in the choice of school for your child.

We look forward to adding some new features in the near future – we are currently adding data in over 40 fields on each school to allow for far more detailed searches and help in finding the right school for your child !

Big Changes at SchoolSeek

Well, the regular visitors amongst you may have noticed some big changes around the site recently. We’ve been laughing at the idea of sleep for the past few days and added several cool new features, as well as streamlining some old ones.

This post is probably indicative of the most substantial change to the site. We’ve gone all Web 2.0 and put a blog on the site. The aim of the blog is to become a major resource for education related information, obviously with a focus on Australian issues such as changes in education policy, interesting programs offered by various schools etc.

We’ve also been at work on some site design changes. Most of the work has been relatively subtle, aimed at making the site more accessible and more user friendly.

Upcoming Features

A sneak at some of the new things that we’ve been working on:

• Subscription levels to allow schools to edit their own information,
• Mapping and travel information,
• A massive addition to the database, raising the number of schools to well over 2,000!
• Changes to the “Compare School” feature to allow you to compare up to 5 schools,
• Improvements to the search functionality, to make it easier to “find the right school for your child!”,

We’re also going to add the ability to add comments, so we’ll be able to get your feedback to blog posts like this one. Once it’s ready to go, let us know how we’re doing.