Proposal to Guarantee All Sydney Students Access To A Coed High School

I have come across this article in SMH recently which you can find at All Sydney students to have guaranteed access to a co-ed high school.

Students living in Sydney’s single-sex public high school catchments will have guaranteed access to a nearby coeducational school under a plan being developed by the NSW Department of Education.

Families in the Georges River area were the first to be officially informed of the change. From next year, students zoned for the Penshurst Girls and Hurstville Boys’ campuses of Georges River College can also choose the co-ed Peakhurst campus.

Other catchments will follow once the department finishes the complicated process of assessing student numbers and re-drawing catchments, senior government sources said on the condition of anonymity because the policy has not been finalised.

SMH

The background of this is that boys schools, in general, have a falling attendance and interest and parents are increasingly opting to send their children to coed schools. It is also important to note that the same cannot be said of girls high school, the enrolment numbers tend to be kept strong. Randwick Boys and Girls High School is a prime example of this.

Similar plan had been proposed previously to merge the Randwick Boys and Girls High School together to better utilize the facilities. While it received strong support from the parents of the Randwick Boys High School’s students, it encountered strong resistance from the parents of the Randwick Girls High School, so the plan was eventually shelved.

I think the outcome will be case by case, not every single-sex school has close-by coded schools with available space. Merging them can also encounter strong resistance from some of the parents. So it may work well in some cases and in others can be very difficult. The process will likely drag on for years as well, so do not expect a quick and clean outcome for this plan.

Overall, I am personally in favour of coed schools and support the move as well.

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