Students near 4 million, female teachers outnumber males

The number of school students in Australia increased by 1.4 per cent in 2019, reaching almost 4 million enrolments (3,948,811), according to a report released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

ABS Program Manager for Education and Training Statistics, Michelle Ducat said “The Australian Capital Territory had the largest increase in enrolments at 2 per cent.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school student enrolments increased by 8,695 students (3.9 per cent) from the previous year. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students make up 5.8 per cent of all school students.

In 2019, there were 288,294 full-time equivalent teaching staff across Australian primary and secondary schools, of which 206,838 (71.7 per cent) were females and 81,456 (28.3 per cent) were males. In comparison, 50 years ago 58.7 per cent of teachers were female and 41.3 per cent were male.

"Whilst over time the number of teachers has increased overall, the number of female teachers has increased at a greater pace than male teachers. In 1969, there were 1.4 female teachers for every male teacher. Fifty years on that figure has increased to 2.5 female teachers for every male teacher.”

“Male teachers are more likely to work in secondary schools, where they comprise 39.2% of the total teachers, compared with primary schools where male teachers comprise 18.1% of total teachers,” Ms Ducat said.

More information is available in Schools, Australia 2019 (cat no 4221.0).