You’re told it’s simple: receive good grades in high school, get into a top university, land the dream job. Before you know it, you’re clinking glasses with your colleagues who got here the same way you did – hard work.
We want to believe that the school-to-career pathway in Australia is shaped by merit alone. But your pathway is more shaped by your parents’ education and your first steps past the school gate than by your ATAR.
We want to believe that the school-to-career pathway in Australia is shaped by merit alone. But your pathway is more shaped by your parents’ education and your first steps past the school gate than by your ATAR.
It’s when you’re in the workplace that the gaps become clear. But they didn't start there, they started way back in primary school. Which primary school you attended is the first marker of social inequity. That’s because in Australia, it’s where the two options appear: private or public.
The ‘extras’ doing the most
As a passionate educator, Ramya Deepak Kumar, the assistant principal at Mount Waverley Primary, believes, ‘Every student regardless of what school they go to, whether they go to public or private…deserves a chance to be successful in their life and to have control over their learning.’
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show Australia has over 9,000 schools – 6,000 government and nearly 3,000 combined independent or Catholic schools. Over the five years to 2024, student enrolments in independent schools rose by 18.5% (Catholic 6.6%, government 1.0%).
What’s drawn so many families into the private system is less about the classroom and more about what’s offered on the side. ‘Public schools sometimes get left back because we don’t have the funding to do some of the things that we want to do for our students,’ Kumar said.
‘We can’t provide those flashy experiences for our students that some of the private schools can, but that doesn’t mean that we are not building citizens of the future.’
‘We can’t provide those flashy experiences for our students that some of the private schools can, but that doesn’t mean that we are not building citizens of the future.’
With funding already imbalanced, public schools can’t offer as great a variety of VCE subjects, extracurriculars like camps and excursions, or afford on-site wellbeing counsellors. That doesn’t mean the two systems can’t coexist.
‘Private and public schools can become friends because it’s about what the kids want. It’s not about “because I have so much money” or “because it’s my family reputation”,’ Kumar said.
But often it is about family reputation and money. They’re the greatest influences on which schools are accessible to young Australians.
Inheriting the instructions
Family and wealth influenced Jenny Chesters’ pathway from school to career. Growing up, she attended a less well-funded high school, had little advice from anyone during her education, and when she got accepted into university she had to defer due to a loss of a parent.
‘Then life gets in the way, and you just go “Oh well”,’ Chesters said.
At 43, when her two daughters were already attending university, she filled out her own enrolment. Now, she’s an academic at the University of Melbourne in the Faculty of Education, interested in inequity in education systems.
It was on the enrolment form where she noticed how gaps between students were often framed.
‘There was a question that said, “Are you the first in your family to go to university?” and I said, “No,” because her daughters had gone before her. ‘I’ve told people ever since that you should change the question to, “Did your mother or your father go to university?” Because that’s completely different.’
‘I've told people ever since that you should change the question to, “Did your mother or your father go to university?” Because that’s completely different.’
Who gets a leg up in university and the workplace isn’t only shaped by whether you went private or public. ‘The research that I’ve done doesn’t show that it’s the type of school that you went to that makes a difference. It’s actually your parents’ education and the SES of the other students going to your school,’ Chesters said.
The conversations that happen at home can be very different if your parents aren’t familiar with the education system. Chesters said that growing up with parents who have limited education can mean you don’t inherit the same cultural and social capital – or the knowledge of how the education system works. That often means you need more resources from school than if you have highly educated parents.
‘So you’re going to do well at school whether you’re public or private if you have highly educated parents, particularly if they choose to live in an area where the schools have lots of other highly educated parents.’
Chesters points out that Australia will never have an equal school system when the government subsidises private schools. ‘You shouldn’t be denied opportunities just because you’re going to a government school.’
Opportunities should be offered to us by merit, but here in Australia, that’s not always the case.
The merit story we tell ourselves
For Monash University senior lecturer in Education Howard Prosser, what ‘merit’ looks like is more of a myth than a reality. ‘I don’t think that Australia is a meritocracy, but the main reason I say that is that I think that meritocracy is a mythology itself,’ he said.
Even the language around merit changes how we see privilege in schooling. ‘There’s existing social structures in place that get reproduced through advantages that are ingrained within the Australian school system. What I mean is that if you get a high ATAR score, usually that corresponds with an existing educational advantage – namely that your parents went to university for example.’
Like Chesters, he also points out the advantage of whether your parents went to university.
‘Meritocracy kind of rewards inherited advantage, and the other side of the problem with it is that it sort of has an idea where it moralises inequality.’
‘Meritocracy kind of rewards inherited advantage, and the other side of the problem with it is that it sort of has an idea where it moralises inequality.’
Who you know – and who your parents know – can become networks gained through elite, high-fee-paying private schools. ‘Those who don’t reach that particular status are seen as being inferior to those who do, and that is a problem with meritocracy in general.’
All these choices and conversations behind doors change the pathway from school to career for every Australian. You have the choice between private or public. Your parents and their education influence that choice. Sure, some success stories are built on merit, but most begin at the school gate.
On the outside, everyone enters the school grounds on equal footing. But once you’re on the inside, only then do you see that some couldn’t walk past the gate while others are racing past you.
[Private schools and members of their communities were approached for interview, but declined to participate.]
