Vic to have 190,000 extra students by 2026

Hundreds of new state schools will need to open in the next decade to cope with a massive influx of children entering school age.

The Victorian government admits it faces huge challenges when it comes to building enough schools to accommodate the 190,000 extra students predicted to flood the education system between 2016 and 2026.

Education Minister James Merlino says up to 450 children are being born every month just in the city of Wyndham, in southwest Melbourne.

"Just in one municipality ... the equivalent of a primary school is being born every month," he told reporters on Monday.

He said it was a huge challenge for the government.

The figures were cited in a Grattan Institute analysis, which said Victoria would need 220 new schools by 2026.

The institute's education director, Peter Goss, said Victoria's "mini baby boom" in 2006 put significant stress on the education system.

"The population is forecast to grow for the foreseeable future, and we need to make sure there are going to be classrooms and schools," he told AAP on Monday.

Since the 1980s, successive state governments have put off planning for the future of Victoria's education because they believed population growth would remain flat, Mr Goss said.

There will be no new state schools opened in Victoria in 2016, which is first time no schools have been added in 15 years.

Mr Merlino said it takes between 18 months and two years to plan, design, fund and build a new school.

Both he and Australian Education Union Victorian secretary Meredith Peace blamed the school shortage on previous Liberal government cuts.

Ms Peace told AAP that investment in state schools flourished under the Bracks and Brumby Labor governments, before suffering significant cuts under Liberal premiers Ted Baillieu and Dennis Napthine.

Opposition education spokesman Nick Wakeling said if the Andrews government had not wasted $1.1 billion in tearing up the East West Link tollway contract, they could have built more than 60 new schools.