Melbourne’s top public schools are becoming more ethnically diverse
The selective public schools that don’t require students to live nearby have been slowly changing, with new figures revealing an interesting shift in the cohort.
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Several of Melbourne’s most sought after public schools are getting more ethnic in terms of student enrolments, official figures show.
Up to 89 per cent of students at some schools have non-English-speaking backgrounds as migrant families target certain suburbs to take advantage of taxpayer-funded quality education.
And selective schools, which don’t require students to live nearby, are overwhelmingly populated by pupils from Asian backgrounds, such as Chinese, Indians and Sri Lankans.
Glen Waverley Secondary College’s NESB cohort has risen from 86 per cent in 2015 to 89 per cent last year, according to a Herald Sun analysis of the state government’s MySchool website.
Balwyn High, in the city’s leafy east, has seen its ethnic student population jump from 66 per cent to 71 per cent over the same time.
Both schools are in areas with high concentrations of Chinese-born people.
Australian Population Research Institute director Dr Bob Birrell said the system was favouring well-heeled and highly motivated migrants.
“Students from migrant families have succeeded in this competition because their parents are typically recent arrivals working in professional and other high income areas who are best equipped to provide their kids with the background needed to make it,” he said.
“They are buying into these locations to provide high quality education without needing to pay high private school fees.’
Migrant families are also known to pour resources into preparing their children to pass entry tests to elite state selective schools.
Berwick selective school Nossal High had an 89 per cent NESB cohort last year, up from 79 per cent five years ago, while the figures for Werribee’s Suzanne Corey High were 87 per cent and 89 per cent respectively.
Original selective boys’ school Melbourne High had an 84 per cent ethnic student cohort, up from 79 per cent, while MacRobertson Girls High’s figure was 88 per cent for both years.
Dr Birrell said that the original aim of the newer selective schools Nossal and Suzanne Corey was to increase opportunity for students in outer suburban areas to get a top quality education.
“This MySchool data confirms that it hasn’t worked out that way,” he said.
“You just have go to the local rail station to see the cascade of students coming in from other localities to take up those opportunities,” he said.
Unlike normal state schools, selective ones do not have residential zones limiting access.
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