The radicalisation of young people has become a growing concern since 15-year-old Farhad Jabar shot dead police accountant Curtis Cheng outside police headquarters in western Sydney on October 2.

Concerns that radicalised students are preaching extremist views in school prayer groups have prompted calls for the prayer groups to be cancelled.

The claim: Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne says Australia has the highest proportion of non-government schools in the OECD, and almost all of those schools are religious.

Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne says Australia has the highest proportion of non-government schools in the OECD, and almost all of those schools are religious. The verdict: OECD data indicates Australia ranks fourth in the OECD for its proportions of students attending primary and lower secondary schools, and fifth for upper secondary schools. Data from the ABS and the Independent Schools Council of Australia suggest 94 per cent of Australian private schools are religious. No, Australia does not have the highest proportion of non-government schools in the OECD, but yes, almost all of those schools are religious.

In an interview on Channel Nine's Today Show, the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne, was asked to respond to these calls.

Mr Pyne, a former education minister, said he had no problem with prayer in government or non-government schools.

"We have the highest penetration of non-government schools in the OECD in Australia. Almost all of those are religious schools," he said.

Does Australia have the highest proportion of students attending private schools in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)? And are almost all Australian private schools religious?

ABC Fact Check investigates.

Australian data

Fact Check contacted Mr Pyne's office to ask for the basis of his claim, but did not receive a response.

David Zyngier from Monash University's Faculty of Education, Bob Lingard from the University of Queensland's School of Education and Richard Teese from Melbourne University's Graduate School of Education told Fact Check they interpret the "penetration" of non-government schools as the proportion of students attending those schools.

The Australian Department of Education and Training website says Australian public schools are owned and operated by state and territory governments, with the Federal Government providing supplementary funding.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishes data on school enrolment, tracking the proportion of students enrolled in public and private schools in Australia at the primary and secondary levels of education.

The ABS Schools Australia statistics indicated that in 2014, 31 per cent of full-time primary students were enrolled in private schools, as were 41 per cent of full-time secondary students.

International comparisons

Does Australia have a higher penetration of private schools than other OECD countries? ( AAP )

All three experts referred Fact Check to the OECD Education at a glance report, which was published in 2014 and contains the most recent international data.

It uses more categories than the ABS data, first classifying schools as public or private.

The OECD report defines public schools as those controlled and managed by a public education authority or agency.

Private schools are those controlled by a non-government organisation or with a governing board not selected by a government agency.

The report further breaks down private schools into either government-dependent or independent categories, according to the degree of government funding.

It classifies all schools as primary, lower secondary or upper secondary.

Primary education has a duration of six years, with students entering between five and seven years old.

Lower secondary education follows six years of primary education and lasts for three years.

Students entering upper secondary education are generally 15 or 16 years old and are typically expected to have completed nine years of education or lower secondary schooling before entry.

OECD data

The OECD report used 2012 data for all OECD countries except Canada, for which 2011 data was used.

Experts contacted by Fact Check said the data published in the report is reliable.

"That's the most authoritative data that you can get," Dr Zyngier said.

Professor Lingard had a similar view.

"Absolutely [it is the best data], there's nothing else," he said.

Emeritus Professor Teese said: "'Education at a glance' is authoritative."

All three told Fact Check the proportions of students attending government-dependent and independent private schools should be added together to give the total proportion of students attending private schools in each country.

For Australia, OECD data said 31 per cent of students attended private schools at the primary level, 36 per cent at the lower secondary level and 36 per cent at the upper secondary level.

Australia had the fourth highest proportion of students attending private primary schools, behind Chile, Belgium and Spain.

It also had the fourth highest proportion of students attending private lower secondary schools, behind Belgium, Chile and the United Kingdom, and ranked fifth in terms of the proportion of students attending private upper secondary schools, behind the United Kingdom, Chile, Belgium and Korea.

Data categories

For Belgium, the OECD report only divides data into the public and private categories and does not break down private schools into government-dependent and independent categories.

The same is true for the numbers at the secondary levels in Australia.

But experts contacted by Fact Check said the absence of this breakdown would not affect Australia's ranking against other OECD countries.

The OECD data for Australian schools reflects 2012 ABS data, which does not distinguish between government-dependent and independent private schools or upper and lower secondary schools.

The ABS Schools Australia statistics for 2012 indicated 31 per cent of full time primary students and 40 per cent of full-time secondary students were enrolled in private schools, compared with the OECD figures of 31 per cent of primary students, 36 per cent of lower secondary and 36 per cent of upper secondary students.

Professor Teese said it looks like the OECD report accounted for all Australian private schools in its statistics, which are essentially consistent with the ABS statistics.

He said Belgium is well known to have a higher proportion of students in private schools than Australia.

"You need to count Belgium as higher than Australia," he said.

Professor Lingard agreed, adding the data for independent private schools in Belgium might have been unavailable due to complexities within the administrative structure in Belgium.

"Various bits of Belgium have different policy frames," he said.

Dr Zyngier said the absence of the breakdown between government-dependent and independent private schools in Belgium would not affect the comparison to Australia.

Religious private schools in Australia

The ABS Schools Australia statistics for 2014 show the number of government and non-government schools in Australia.

The ABS broke down non-government schools into two categories: Catholic and independent.

The Catholic category includes systemic and non-systemic Catholic schools, and accounted for 63 per cent of all private schools.

The independent category includes Anglican schools and other schools that are associated with religious or secular bodies, or are entirely independent.

It accounted for 37 per cent of all private schools.

The Independent Schools Council of Australia (ISCA) represents the independent private school sector nationally and had 1078 member schools in 2014 according to its independent schooling in Australia snapshot for 2015.

The snapshot said 85 per cent of the ISCA's member schools have a religious affiliation, which Fact Check calculates is 916 schools.

The snapshot said 55 of the ISCA's member schools are Catholic.

This leaves 861 member schools that are religious but not Catholic.

Adding these 861 member schools to the ABS number of 1722 Catholic schools suggests the total number of religious private schools is 2583.

This indicates 94 per cent of all private schools in Australia are religious.

Private schools that are not members of the ISCA include Catholic systemic schools and other relatively low fee paying private schools that receive more than half of their core funding from government agencies.

Dr Zyngier told Fact Check most of these schools are religious.

"Not only are over 75 per cent of the 1700 Catholic schools included, but all of the lower fee, religious schools - Jewish, Muslim, Christian fundamentalist schools," he said.

Professor Lingard said almost all Australian private schools have a religious affiliation.

"That's true. But what does that mean? They're affiliated with a Church, but you have the old Protestant elite independent schools which for all intents and purposes are secular," he said.

How religious are 'religious' schools?

Experts contacted by Fact Check said although most Australian private schools have a religious affiliation, many of their students do not practise the religion.

"For example, you've got St Michael's Grammar and Wesley College in Melbourne and very similar schools in Sydney, where you've got large percentages of Jewish kids in there, even though they're notionally a Church of England or something like that school," Dr Zyngier said.

Most private schools in Australia have a religious affiliation. ( J Bar )

Professor Lingard had a similar view.

"[At] the Catholic elite schools, now more than half the kids aren't Catholic and at least half the teachers aren't," he said.

Professor Teese said: "How religious the non-government schools are is debatable . . . Catholic schools in Australia and overseas enrol many children from non-Catholic, non-Christian and atheist backgrounds, and many Catholic children attend government or private non-Catholic schools."

However, Mr Pyne made his claim in the context of a discussion on allowing schools to hold prayers, not on whether the students practise the religion.

The verdict

OECD data indicates Australia has the fourth highest proportion of students attending private primary and lower secondary schools in the OECD, and the fifth highest proportion of students attending private upper secondary schools.

Data from the ABS and the Independent Schools Council of Australia suggests 94 per cent of all Australian private schools have a religious affiliation.

No, Australia does not have the highest proportion of non-government schools in the OECD, but yes, almost all of those schools are religious.

Sources