Student intake plunges

STATE schools on the Gold Coast have lost more than a thousand pupils in the space of just 12 months.

Analysis by the Bulletin of Education Queensland figures show public primary and high schools in the city lost a combined 1014 pupils between August 2021 and 2022.

The drop – from 64,570 pupils to 63,556 – represents a fall of 1.57 per cent.

While some schools are still growing, almost three out of four are seeing numbers fall. The biggest drops are at primary school level, where numbers dipped by an average of just over four per cent last year.

Among those to see falls were Burleigh Heads State School, where student numbers were down 12.6 per cent, and Gaven State School, down 9.8 per cent.

Numbers are also down significantly at most state schools in Coomera, although they are likely impacted by the opening of new schools in the area.

Among the state schools bucking the trend was Pacific Pines State High School, where numbers soared above 2000 in the same year it opened a new $25m junior learning precinct.

Leading demographer Mark McCrindle said the popularity of independent schooling among interstate migrants to the Gold Coast helped explain the trend.

“It’s an amazing situation,” Mr McCrindle said. “It definitely comes as a surprise that the public school enrolments are down when the population is up.

“The missing link there is that independent schools have had a lot of growth.”

Mr McCrindle said many people arriving on the Gold Coast from Sydney and Melbourne were already used to independent schooling, and would have made provision for school fees in their moving plans.

“One of the reasons for this internal migration is cost of living pressures and so if people are moving to the Gold Coast from one of the southern capitals then they are saving money on the mortgage,” Mr McCrindle said. “That means they’ve got greater capacity for things like school fees.”

Mr McCrindle added that the decline in student numbers at state schools was not necessarily bad news for the sector after a number of years of strong growth.

“It means they’ve got capacity,” he said. “The Gold Coast is going to continue to grow so it’s better to have space for growth rather than suddenly be overstretched.”

Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) CEO Chris Mountford said independent schools across the state had seen numbers increase.

“Independent schools in Queensland saw a significant increase in enrolments throughout the pandemic as families made the decision to move to Queensland as a result of lockdowns and changes in work circumstances,” Mr Mountford said.

“While overall growth has slowed as predicted, we are still forecasting a 3.8 per cent increase in total enrolments compared to the previous year, with the independent sector catering for 16 per cent of all Queensland school enrolments in 2023.”

The decline in state school numbers on the Gold Coast has also followed a sharp jump in housing costs in the last two years.

Despite interest rate rises leading to modest falls in some areas, SQM Research data shows average asking prices in the north and west of the city remain at record highs at $987,664 and $962,041 respectively.