Over the weekend, The SMH reported that Sydney’s that the mass overcrowding afflicting Sydney’s primary schools is about to cascade into the city’s high schools:
The overcrowding crisis in Sydney’s primary schools is about to hit high schools, as the baby bonus generation starts secondary school and the growth in apartment living puts pressure on suburbs already battling soaring enrolments.
At least 10 local government areas in Sydney, already straining to keep up with surging school enrolments, are also facing a boom in their high school-age population…
Hotspots include Ryde, Waverley and Camden LGAs, with Marsden High (Ryde), Rose Bay Secondary College (Waverley) and Elizabeth Macarthur High (Camden) among the worst-affected high schools…
Opposition education spokesman, Jihad Dib, said the government had “failed by a long shot” to plan for the high school boom…
The boom has seen unprecedented levels of overcrowding in the state’s primary schools and with the oldest of the baby bonus generation turning 13 this year, the crisis is about to hit high schools…
With more families now living in apartments and the city in the midst of an apartment boom, new residential blocks have the potential to significantly increase the number of children within a school catchment area.
“Are our kids just supposed to be the lost generation? The kids that get forgotten because the government didn’t plan ahead?,” Ms Balta said…
“When you have an increase in population and a decrease in social infrastructure, you are in dire straits,” Ms Heath said…
As usual, the Fairfax article pins the blame on the Baby Bonus, while conveniently ignoring the main driver of Sydney’s population boom: the federal government’s mass immigration program.
It is this mass immigration program that is primarily behind the 830,000 (20%) increase in Sydney’s population over the past 12 years as well as the projected 87,000 people per year (1.74 million in total) increase in Sydney’s population over the next 20 years:
In a rearguard action to mitigate the overcrowding, the NSW Government is expected today to launch a new schools building program in today’s State Budget. From The SMH:
The budget will commit $2.2 billion over five years in new money to 123 new school infrastructure projects, which will commence during the next two years to create 32,000 more student places and 1500 new classrooms across the state…
The government says 27 schools will be built in Sydney growth areas including Catherine Field, Marsden Park, Leppington and North Kellyville as well as in Penrith, Liverpool, Sydney Olympic Park, Ryde, Wagga Wagga, and Warnervale on the Central Coast…
Combined with a commitment in last year’s budget to spend $2.6 billion on education infrastructure until 2019-20, the new funding brings total spending on new and upgraded schools to $4.2 billion to 2020-21. This includes completion of a further 33 existing projects over the next four years…
A blueprint prepared by the state government said by 2031 the number of students in NSW government schools would jump by 21 per cent on 2016 levels, of which 80 per cent would occur in Sydney.
This represented 96,500 extra primary students and 67,500 extra secondary students.
So will the additional schools investment be enough to keep up with the explosion in Sydney’s student numbers? Nope.
Peter Goss, School Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, penned an excellent article in The Conversation assessing the upcoming shortage of schools across Australia’s capital cities as the nation’s population balloons. This article estimated that the number of school students would balloon by 650,000 (17%) by 2026, which would require the building of an additional 400 to 750 new schools (up from 9,400 currently). NSW (mostly Sydney) would need an additional 213 schools to cope with an additional 14% of students over the next decade, whereas Victoria (mostly Melbourne) would require an additional 220 schools to cope with an additional 19% of students (see below graphic).
When compared to the Grattan Institute’s analysis, the NSW Government’s investment is underwhelming to the point that it guarantees a goodly fall in pedagogical standards.
To make matters even worse, the Turnbull Government recently relaxed visa rules to allow 6 year-old foreign students and their guardians visa entry into Australia’s primary schools, thus adding to the demand pressures.
Former NSW Treasury boss, Percy Allen, has the right idea:
The Australian government is fiscally broke. It’s running a huge budget deficit that is adding to its interest bill…
To alleviate demand pressure on social services, education and health the government should halve the permanent immigration intake.
To avoid any racist overtones the humanitarian component should be expanded. Significantly slowing Australia’s population growth would also reduce pressure on house prices, city congestion and stagnant wages.
Exactly. The NSW Government should tap the federal government on the shoulder and demand it to lower the immigration intake, in turn relieving pressure on public services, infrastructure and housing.
Instead of continually struggling (and failing) to keep up with the population ponzi, why not seek to remove the demand pressures causing the overcrowding in the first place? None of this is rocket science.
