More Victorian families don't send kids to local schools

The Victorian Auditor–General Office has released a report Managing School Infrastructure to assess whether the Department of Education and Training (DET) is effectively planning for and managing school infrastructure.

The report reveals that over half of parents are choosing to send their children to government schools outside their designated neighbourhood school's catchment.

"Enrolment pressure is particularly occurring at schools with better reputations," the report said.

"Currently, 52.3 per cent of government primary school enrolments and 53.3 per cent of government secondary school enrolments come from outside the local school catchment."

Currently DET is managing this by: 

• increasing the number of buildings at schools with increasing enrolments 
• adjusting school neighbourhood boundaries
• working with less popular schools to improve their performance and increase their demand for enrolments.