Schools, Australia, 2008

The statistics in this publication relate to government and non-government schools, students and school staff, and were collected through the non-finance National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC), which was established through the work of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). For more detailed information about the structure and scope of the NSSC refer to the Glossary. In August 2008, there were 9562 schools in Australia, of which 6833 (71.5%) were government schools and 2729 (28.5%) were non-government schools. In 2008, 70.5% of all non-special schools were primary only, 15.9% were secondary only and 13.6% were combined primary/secondary schools. In 1998, these proportions were 73.2%, 16.3% and 10.5% respectively. Over the decade this equates to a decrease of 348 in the number of primary, and secondary schools, and an increase of 278 in the number of combined primary/secondary schools