Educational

System of
Australia
ALLABA, NIKKA
AGBU, VIVIENNE
 Australia is a leading global provider of education to international students;
and, after the United States and the United Kingdom, is ranked as the third
largest provider of international education. Many international students choose
to study there because of the cultural diversity, friendly natives, and high
quality of education.
Australian Curriculum

 Through the Council of Australian Governments, the

Commonwealth Government has, since 2014, played an
increasing role in the establishment of the Australian
Curriculum that sets the expectations for what all young
Australians should be taught, regardless of where they live in
Australia or their background. The development of the
Australian Curriculum is based on the principles of improving
the quality, equity and transparency of Australia's education
system.
 The Australian Curriculum, for pre-Year 1 to Year 10, is made up of the
following eight learning areas: English; Mathematics; Science; Humanities
and Social Sciences; The Arts; Technologies; Health and Physical Education
as well as Languages.
 In the senior secondary Australian Curriculum, for Year 11 and Year 12,
fifteen senior secondary subjects across English, Mathematics, Science,
History and Geography were endorsed between 2012 and 2013.
 The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has
mandated the achievement standards that describe the quality of learning
(including the depth of understanding, the extent of knowledge, and the
sophistication of skill) expected of students who have studied the content for
each subject.
The Australian education system
provides:
 Primary
 Secondary
 and Tertiary education
Preschool

 Preschool and pre-prep programmes in Australia are relatively unregulated,

and are not compulsory. The first exposure many Australian children have to
learning with others outside of traditional parenting is day care or a parent-
run playgroup.
Primary

 Primary school - Runs for seven or eight years, starting at

Kindergarten/Preparatory through to Year 6 or 7.
 Preschools are usually run by the state and territory governments, except in
Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales where they are more often run
by local councils, community groups or private organisations.
 Preschool is offered to three- to five-year-olds; attendance numbers vary
widely between the states, but 85.7% of children attended pre-school the
year before school.
Secondary

 Secondary school - Runs for three or four years, from Years 7 to

10 or 8 to 10.
 Senior secondary school - Runs for two years, Years 11 and 12.
 In the majority of Australian states and territories, middle
schools are relatively uncommon. Students progress from
primary school to secondary school.
 As an alternative to the middle school model, some secondary
schools divided their grades into "junior high school" (Years 7, 8,
9 and 10) and "senior high school" (Years 11 and 12). Some
have three levels, "junior" (Years 7 and 8), "intermediate" (Years
9 and 10), and "senior" (Years 11 and 12).
Tertiary education
 Includes both higher education (including universities) and vocational
education and training (VET).
 VET providers, both public and private are registered by state and territory
governments. All students doing nationally recognised training need to have
a Unique Student Identifier (USI).
 Higher education courses can be taken to earn an advanced degree and
continue your studies in Australia. There are three main types of higher
education which lead to Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Degrees
 In Australia it is quite common for students to enroll in a double or
combined Bachelor Degree program which leads to the award of two
Bachelor Degrees. This is most common in the fields of arts, commerce, law
and science.
 Tertiary education

 Australian institutions offer a wide range of courses – from science to

management and commerce, humanities to engineering, and law to health
sciences. Australian institutions rank among the world’s best by discipline,
particularly in engineering and technology, medicine, environmental science,
and accounting and finance.
 There are 43 universities in Australia: 40 public universities, two
international universities and one private university. As of 2015, the largest
university in Australia was Monash University in Melbourne: with five
campuses and 75,000 students.
Language of instruction

 English is the official language of Australia and the main

language of instruction in the education system. Many schools
offer bilingual programs or programs in other languages.
Types of schools
 The types of schools in Australia fall broadly into two categories:
1. Government schools
2. Non-government schools
 Government schools, being those schools operated by state or territory
departments or agencies. Government schools receive funding from the
relevant state or territory government.
 Offers free education however, many government schools ask parents to pay
a contribution fee and a materials and services charge for stationery,
textbooks, sports, uniforms, school camps and other schooling costs that
are not covered under government funding.
 Also called state schools or public schools, government schools educate
approximately two-thirds of all school students in Australia.
 If a student elects to attend a government school, they are required to
attend a school within their local school district unless the student has
dispensation to attend another school, usually approved on the basis of
academic merit, specialization, or other reasons, such as a student
disability.
 Non-government schools, being those schools that are not operated by
government department or agencies.
 Non-government schools receive funding from the Australian Government and
relevant state or territory government and in most cases parents are required to
make a co-payment for their child's education.
 Schools from the non-government sector operate under the authority of state or
territory governments but are not operated by government education
departments.
 Schools from the non-government sector may operate as individual schools, in
small groups or as a system such as those coordinated by the Catholic Education
Commission in each state and territory.
Mixed-sex and single-sex education
 In Australia, both government and non-government schools operate co-
educational and single-sex educational environments for students.
 The overwhelming number of schools are co-educational, with a small
proportion of government schools operating single-sex schools, sometimes
with a separate boys' and girls' school in the same suburb.
 All government single-sex schools are secondary schools. Examples of
adjacent single-sex government secondary schools.
 The majority of single-sex schools in Australia are non-government schools,
heavily weighted towards independent schools, some of which are Catholic
independent schools.
 Some Catholic systemic schools are also single-sex schools; however, like
government schools, the overwhelming majority are co-educational schools.
Day and boarding schools
 In Australia, both government and non-government schools operate day and
boarding schools. As of 2019, of the 10,584 registered schools operating in
Australia, approximately 250 schools (or less than 2.5 percent) were
boarding schools.
 Boarding schools can provide a valuable platform for students to achieve
their potential academically along with providing support and guidance with
their psychological, social, emotional and spiritual development.
 Some Australian schools offer gender specific (boys' [approximately 21
percent] or girls' [approximately 28 percent]) and co-educational boarding
schools (51 percent); with multi-modal options, such as full-time boarding
and part-time boarding (for example, going home on the weekends) offered
by some schools.
School Year

 Starts at the end of January and ends in mid December. It is divided into four
terms of 9 to 12 weeks. The main summer holidays are roughly 6 weeks.
Shall we say vacation starts on December 24, Sunday and ends on January
30, a Monday.
 Compulsory attendance
requirements
 School education in Australia is compulsory between certain
ages as specified by state or territory legislation. Depending on
the state or territory, and date of birth of the child, school is
compulsory from the age of five to six to the age of fifteen to
seventeen.
Basic skills tests
 The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (abbreviated as
NAPLAN) is a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered annually
to Australian students. These standardized tests assess students' reading, writing,
language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.
 Introduced in 2008, NAPLAN is administered by the Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and is overseen by the Council of
Australian Governments (COAG) Education Council.
 The tests are designed to determine if Australian students are achieving outcomes.
The tests are designed to be carried out on the same days across Australia in any
given year. Parents are able to decide whether their children take the test or not.
The vast majority of Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students participate. Although for year three
students, they have to pass with a 70% mark in order to progress to Year 4.
 One of the aims of NAPLAN is to prepare young children towards competitive
examinations.
International students in Australia
 In Australia, a student is considered as an international student if he/she studies at an
approved educational institution and he/she is not an Australian citizen, Australian
permanent resident, New Zealand citizen, or a holder of an Australian permanent resident
humanitarian visa.
 Under the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 (Cth), the Australian
Government regulates the delivery of school and tertiary education to international students
who are granted a student visa to study in Australia. The government maintains the
Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS) and,
as of 2018, there were 396 school providers with an overall approved capacity of 88,285
students.
International Tertiary Students

 In 2017, the number of international tertiary students studying in Australia

reached a new record of 583,243. This represented an increase of more than
10 percent on the previous year. The Australian onshore international
education sector is predicted to rise from the current 650,000 enrolments to
940,000 by 2025. The biggest source markets for onshore international
learner enrolments in 2025 are expected to be China, India, Vietnam,
Thailand, Nepal, Malaysia, Brazil and South Korea. According to a 2016
report by Deloitte Access Economics for the Australian Trade and Investment
Commission, higher education and VET were projected to be the fastest
growing sectors in onshore international education by 2025.