Is co-ed or single-sex best? At these top Brisbane high schools, almost everyone goes to uni

Want your child to get a university degree? Better send them to a single-sex school.

Private girls schools made up five of the top 10 schools in Brisbane with the highest proportion of Year 12 students going to university in 2021.

Private girls schools in Brisbane have high numbers of graduates attending university after Year 12.Credit: Louie Douvis

At St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School in Corinda, 96 per cent of Year 12 graduates were studying at university six months later, while 1 per cent went to TAFE and 1 per cent were working.

At Brisbane Girls Grammar, 95 per cent were at uni.

There were three single-sex boys schools in the top 10 for university admissions – Brisbane Grammar (90 per cent), Churchie and St Joseph’s College (aka Gregory Terrace).

Only two co-ed high schools made it, and only one of those was a state school: the selective entry Queensland Academy for Science Mathematics and Technology at Toowong, where 89 per cent of graduates went to uni.

But is a university degree a measure of success?

People with a Bachelor’s degree have median weekly earnings of $1500, compared with $934 for those with no non-school qualifications, and $1250 for a Certificate III/IV, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

That is not to say you cannot make good money without a university degree. A jobs search for “mining no experience” returns several entry-level positions with a $100,000-plus salary.

But the National Skills Commission found more than nine out of 10 new jobs created by 2026 will require a post-school qualification.

The effects are multi-generational, with NAPLAN results showing children of university-educated parents do better in the test than those who finished their education at Year 12.

What about a student’s experience and happiness?

One Brisbane parent discussing the issue on social media said co-ed schooling helped their child learn the skills needed to navigate the world, including “how to treat the other gender as equals”.

Another said she attended a co-ed high school, followed by single-sex, and found that without boys she was not subtly discouraged to pursue STEM subjects, and had the freedom to play sport without worrying about needing to “look good”.

The decisions a student makes about whether they go to university, study at TAFE or get a job after school are also heavily influenced by family background.

For example, at St Aidan’s, 67 per cent of the cohort are from the top quarter in the distribution of socio-educational advantage scale.

Fees at single-sex Brisbane schools range between $12,000 and $31,000 annually, making them unviable for many families, unless they can secure a scholarship.

A 2017 study by the Australian Council for Education Research found students in single-sex schools were significantly more likely to outperform students in co-ed schools in reading and numeracy achievement over time, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.

Some of the results confirmed gender differences in subject areas. That is, girls did better in reading.

But there appeared to be no value-add in numeracy achievement, and even a decline in reading achievement over time in single-sex schools compared with co-ed.

Being raised in regional NSW where single-sex schooling was not an option, I can’t speak from personal experience, but I wonder if I would have felt alien in an all-girl environment when I grew up with four brothers.

But having toured some of Brisbane’s top boys schools as a mother of two boys wondering what was “best” for their education, I could not help but be impressed.

And there’s something to be said for the old-school-tie mentality in Brisbane, whether you hate it or not, where introductions are incomplete without the question: “Where did you go to school?”