Australia named 'most expensive' country for high school costs
New research has revealed that Australia is the most expensive place in the developed world to send a child to high school, prompting a call for "radical reform".
The Australia Institute found it cost families $4967 a year to send a child to high school, almost four times the OECD average.
But the soaring cost of education was found to be driven by an ever-greater uptake of private schools, where parents are paying up to $55,000 a year - despite the sector receiving significant government funding.
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Australia is the most expensive place in the developed world to attend high school. Getty
More than 40 per cent of Australian high schoolers attend private school, with that number set to cross 50 per cent by 2055 if current trends continue.
In comparison, just nine per cent of US high schoolers attend fee-paying schools, and just eight per cent in the UK.
However, despite charging increasingly high fees, the Australia Institute found a private education was not substantially better.
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Public schools were under-funded in comparison to private. Getty
It claimed differences in test scores could be due to differences in the socio-economic background of students - factors such as time to do homework, access to tutoring, and parental education - than to the quality of teaching.
Meanwhile, Australia-wide, public schools are facing a funding shortfall of more than $4 billion.
The Australia Institute co-chief executive Richard Denniss said funding policies had created a "two-tiered education system" in Australia.
"Yet all this money isn't buying a better education for Australian children," he said.
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"In fact, as private school revenues and enrolments have surged, Australia's performance on international tests has declined."
He pointed out that many other countries outright banned the notion of schools being able to charge private fees if they accepted public money.
"Schools which can afford to build things like indoor swimming pools and rifle ranges should not be receiving taxpayer dollars," Denniss said.
"Diverting money from rich private schools into public schools would help level the playing field and would simultaneously encourage families to send their children to public schools, which would save them a small fortune."
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