Indigenous retention is up 15% over the decade but is still well below the non-Indigenous rate

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

​Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are staying in school longer but Australia’s Indigenous retention rate remains well below that of other students.

On Friday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released new school statistics showing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander retention rate has increased by about 15% over the past decade.

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The ABS said the retention rate from years 7 to 12 increased from 47.2% in 2008 to 62.4% in 2017.

The 2017 result was an increase of 2.6% from 2016, the most significant jump since the rate increased by more than four percentage points between 2013 and 2014.

“These new figures show us that more students than ever who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander are staying at school until grade 12,” ABS spokesperson Stephen Collett said.

But the rate of retention is still significantly lower among Indigenous students than non-Indigenous students. In 2017 the non-Indigenous retention rate was 86.0%, up from 85.5% in 2016.



The ABS data also showed the proportion of students enrolled in government schools continues to rise, up to 65.6% from 65.4%. The number of students enrolled in private schools in Australia is still well above that in most developed countries, but the figure has been falling since 2015, after two decades of growth in the independent sector.

“This increase in the government share of enrolments continues a trend first observed in 2015, and represents a reversal of the shift towards non-government schooling observed for much of the past two decades,” Collett said.

The new data comes after a Productivity Commission analysis of school funding showed state governments have cut funding to private schools in response to the Gonski funding arrangements.

While spending on all schools by all governments increased to $55.7bn, the commission’s analysis showed total government spending on public school students grew faster than the private sector for the first time since 2012-13.

The contextually minuscule $22m cut was driven by Victoria, which spent almost $100 less per private school student in 2015-16 and increased funding per public school student by almost $600.