00:02Australian students are on the move, away from public schools and toward private religious
00:08ones.
00:09Australian Christian College on Sydney's north-west fringe has tripled in size.
00:13Four or five years ago we were a school of 450-500.
00:16This year we are a school of over 1500.
00:22Andrew Padel says the financial sacrifice is worth it because of the school's values.
00:27For us, this is the investment for the future where they will get the good education as
00:33well as the good manner.
00:34The exodus to private schools is coming at a cost to family budgets.
00:38Australian parents are now spending almost two and a half times more than the OECD average
00:42to send their kids to high school.
00:44I don't think it's a good news story.
00:47Emma Rowe says unfair funding is short-changing public education and warns the almost 40% of
00:53parents going private that fees are rising faster than inflation.
00:57We also have this kind of, it's like a tinderbox of problems that's going to explode in terms
01:05of a rising cost of tuition fees.
01:08Behavioural economist Dean Pearson says his long term research shows parents are attracted
01:13by extra wellbeing support.
01:15More often than not they will also talk about counsellors, pastoral care, spirituality.
01:21And it's a cost parents will go to great lengths to absorb.
01:24We really love our children, we love our pets and they're the two categories that they'll
01:28say look if I have to cut back on anything that's the last category I want to touch.
01:32Three millimetres.
01:33A prediction private school classrooms will continue to swell.
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