FED: Girls staying on at school longer ABS

AAP General News (Australia)
04-21-1999
FED: Girls staying on at school longer ABS

By Debra Way

CANBERRA, April 21 AAP - Boys are leaving school in larger numbers than girls once reaching
Year 10, figures released today showed.

And the national retention rate for all students from Year 10 to Year 12 declined last year
to 74.1 per cent, down slightly from 74.5 per cent in 1997 and considerably down from 77.5 per
cent in 1993.

The retention rate for boys was 68.9 per cent compared to 79.4 per cent for girls last
year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.

In 1993, 73.2 per cent of boys and 81.9 per cent of girls were staying on past year 10.

Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO) president Dr Ian Morgan said girls
started leading retention rates about 20 years ago.

"It's an issue that parent bodies have been concerned about for a number of years, but
we've seen very little sign of action," he said.

"We think it's about time that education ministers started to get their minds on what we
need to do about the education of boys, although of course, not at the expense of girls."

The effect of the federal government's Common Youth Allowance, which aimed to force young
people to stay on at school longer, was still to be seen, Dr Morgan said.

In other figures, the ABS said the 1998 National Schools Census showed Australia had 9,587
schools last year - 73 per cent of them government schools and 27 non-government.

Thirty-one government schools closed or amalgamated in 1998, while the number of
non-government schools rose by nine.

Despite the closures, the number of full-time students at government schools increased by
0.4 per cent from 1997 to 2,239,000 last year.

The number attending private schools had an even higher increase of 1.9 per cent to
959,000.

The ABS said almost 500 more teachers signed on at government schools in 1998, taking the
number of full-time teaching staff to 146,031, an increase of 0.3 per cent.

Private schools took on an extra 1,525 teachers to have a total of 63,048 full-time
teaching staff, a 2.5 per cent increase.

The average number of students per teacher was almost the same for private and government
schools at 15.2 and 15.3 respectively.

AAP daw/mfh/gl/de

KEYWORD: SCHOOLS

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