By Madeleine Heffernan and Craig Butt
Girls-only schools are losing ground to co-educational ones in Victoria, with experts saying parents regard the latter as better at teaching young people about life.
Boys’ schools are also slipping, but at a slower rate. Some experts are studying enrolment figures to see whether the recent controversy about sexual assaults by schoolboys might reverse the trend and lead to more students and their parents looking for a girls-only education.
Rowena Vitarelli and her daughter Amelia at Fintona Girls’ School.Credit: Jason South
Education Department figures show the number of students enrolled at Victorian co-educational secondary schools rose 11.3 per cent from 2015 to 2020. Enrolments increased by 2.4 per cent at girls’ secondary schools and 4.2 per cent at all-boys schools, amid a student boom.
The picture is even grimmer at government girls’ schools, where enrolments have gone backwards, according to MySchool figures.
At Victoria’s 18 most expensive girls’ schools, which charge at least $27,000 for senior students, enrolments grew 3.3 per cent over the five years.
Emma Rowe, senior lecturer in education at Deakin University, said the slow enrolment growth in single-sex schools “may be due to changing values in society around gender roles and changing attitudes in seeing the value of cross-sex friendships”.
“Many parents now recognise that school imparts not only academic knowledge, or book knowledge, but also important social skills for the workplace,” she said. “Our children will, most likely, eventually be working in cross-sex workplaces.”
Paul O’Shannassy, who helps families choose schools, said the large number of private girls’ schools meant they faced intense competition, and co-ed schools were offering girls discounts to achieve gender balance. He said that if the trend towards co-education continued, it would be increasingly hard for small single-sex schools to survive.
“Schools have fixed costs: staff, curriculum, programs,” he said.
Catholic girls’ school St Aloysius College last year said it would begin to enrol boys from 2023, while Christian Brothers College St Kilda merged with neighbouring Catholic girls’ school Presentation College Windsor this year to create St Mary’s College.
However, Loren Bridge, the executive officer of the Alliance of Girls’ Schools Australasia, said recent claims of sexual assault by young women would “undoubtedly lead many parents to investigate how to educate and protect their daughters from this damaging epidemic”.
She said her members were reporting “more inquiries this year, and in the next few years we would expect the data to confirm this trend”.
“Girls’ schools are one such environment in which there is no place for inequality, sexism, sexualised comments or harassment,” she said.
Rowena Vitarelli has not looked back since choosing Fintona Girls’ School for her daughters, Annabella and Amelia.
Ms Vitarelli attended a co-educational public school but chose the small advantaged school in Balwyn to ensure her daughters were “seen and heard”.
“They’re just in a safe space to learn and grow,” she said.
Phil De Young, a former principal of boys’ school Trinity Grammar and co-educational school Carey Grammar, predicted continued strong demand for “elite” single-sex schools, but said mid- to low-fee schools would probably be vulnerable to the switch to co-education.
“Lots of parents will always want to send their kids to Melbourne Grammar and Scotch, MLC, PLC,” he said.
Education expert Peter Goss has previously estimated Melbourne schools with fewer than 600 to 700 students would find it tougher to compete with bigger schools.
Among government girls’ schools, the more affluent (the select-entry MacRobertson Girls High School, Melbourne Girls’ College in Richmond, and Canterbury Girls Secondary College) have increased enrolments, while the remaining half (Mentone Girls’ Secondary College, Pascoe Vale Girls Secondary College, and Matthew Flinders in Geelong) have lost them.
Australia has a higher proportion of private single-sex schools than the United States and Britain. They typically educate advantaged students from the cities.
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