COVID-19 leads to less students enrolled at NSW schools in 2021

The exodus of temporary visa holders and their young families due to the COVID-19 pandemic has seen whole classes wiped from timetables at Sydney schools.

COVID-19 has cost schools thousands of students — and nowhere is that more apparent than at Chatswood Public.

There are 8925 fewer students in public schools, primarily because migrants returned to their native countries following the pandemic and have not returned.

At Chatswood, where almost nine in 10 students come from non-English speaking homes, kindergarten enrolments plummeted from 215 students to 112 this year.

Year 2 students from Chatswood Public School (L-R) Hayley Tang, Jacob Wilson and Taylor Dempsey. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“A lot of our students have traditionally come from India because their parents move here to work for large corporations for a few years,” Chatswood principal Alex Montgomery said.

“Because of COVID, they have not been able to come into the country. I have had families not allowed back into the country after visiting their relatives in China and Korea.”

With four fewer kindergarten classes this year, the school has turned its unexpectedly empty rooms into dedicated spaces for music, Mandarin and Korean language classes and somewhere for tutors to work with students who fell behind while learning from home during last year’s lockdown.

Chatswood Public School has made new use of their unexpectedly empty classrooms. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

There were 9065 fewer primary school enrolments and 135 fewer secondary school students, offset by 63 extra students at rural central schools and an extra 211 at special schools.

That supports studies that showed Sydneysiders are moving to the bush to snap up more affordable homes.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet is lobbying the federal government for an exemption to the border closure for international students, including school students.

The state government has floated alternatives to quarantine for international students such as housing them with NSW family members. “I want to see international students return to our public schools,” Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said.