Students from wealthier families are making up the lion’s share at many of Perth’s top public schools, while students from lower income households are almost nonexistent.
Out of the 12 public schools to achieve scores in the top 15 per cent in two or more ATAR subjects in 2024, 10 of them had a distribution of students in the top quartile of socio-educational advantage that was above the Australian distribution of 25 per cent.
The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority developed the index of socio-educational advantage to enable fair NAPLAN school comparisons.
It says the index is not based on wealth but on parents’ occupation and education level, but often the pair go hand-in-hand.
Most of the 12 schools listed have increased their share of students from the middle two quartiles in the past 10 years and decreased the number from the highest one, bucking the trend in the eastern states.
But the lowest quartile has remained relatively stagnant and all 12 have a lower percentage than the national share – also 25 per cent.
Real Estate Institute WA chief-executive Cath Hart said part of that was because families with lower income had always been priced out of the local intake areas.
She said the list of schools were all located in suburbs where both median house sale prices and median weekly rents exceed Greater Perth’s median house sale price of $745,000 and median weekly house rent of $670 per week.
The median house sale price exceeded $1 million in all but one area where the 12 schools were located (Ashdale Secondary College’s suburb of Darch was only $50,000 off) and all had a rental median of $750 and above.
“High performing schools are known to influence property prices within their catchment areas. The desire to attend particular schools increases the demand to live within their catchment areas, which in turn puts upward pressure on sale and rent prices,” Hart said.
“This does make it more challenging for lower-income families to secure housing close to popular schools.”
However, Hart encouraged families on lower incomes to look into units, villas, apartments or townhouses in the area as they were usually more affordable.
Perth Modern, the state’s only entirely academically selective school, had the highest distribution of students in the upper quartile of advantage at 79 per cent, with just 1 per cent in the bottom quartile.
John Curtin College of the Arts, a selective school for arts-based programs (except for a minimal local intake allocation), had 51 per cent of students in the upper quartile and just 4 per cent in the lower.
Neither has a school-wide intake area barring students from attending.
Deakin University Associate Professor in Education Emma Rowe said select-entry schools were an asset in an equitable education system, but were not always equitable individually.
“People often think that select-entry schools are more likely to serve a mixed cohort of students, so more diverse students from lower socio-economic status backgrounds, or perhaps more Indigenous students as well – they really don’t cater to diverse cohorts at all,” she said.
“Students tend to represent parents who are highly educated and also from a professional occupation.”
Other schools across WA run specialist entry programs but are not entirely selective.
These schools have a greater margin of students in the lowest socio-educational groups with only half taking in more than the national share of students in the top group and just under half taking in more than the national share of those in the lower groups.
with Alex Crowe
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