‘Affordability is a big challenge; parents want excellence too, but not just results’

David Gonski’s review of Sydney Jewish schools aims to somehow make them affordable, deliver better results, more diversity - and utilise their Talmudic wisdom

IN THE MIDDLE of our interview about the future of Jewish education, David Gonski, chair of the committee that spent a year trying to find solutions for the challenges facing Sydney Jewish day schools, shares a startling number.

312,000.

“$312,000 or above is the uppermost data income band [in the Australian Bureau of Statistics]. The Education Review Committee (ERC) has calculated that anything lower than this, for families with two or more students, for which school fees are being paid, would have an affordability challenge, unless other sources to fund all or part of the school fees are available to them,” the report by the ERC said when it was published in March.

It is a number that encapsulates the challenges facing not only Jewish parents but all parents across Australia as they decide what sort of education they want for their children.  

For Jewish parents, the choices revolve around a Jewish day school (43% of all Jewish school children), another private school, or public schools. The nub of the problem, according to the report, is that the average Jewish day school fee per child is $22,000 per year.

For two-parent families, 20% in Eastern Suburbs North (Waverley and Woollahra municipalities) earn $312k+; 13% in Eastern Suburbs South (Randwick, Maroubra, Botany) are in this bracket, and 14% in Ku-ring-ai (in the North shore). For one-parent families, two per cent of those in ESN are in this band.

Everyone whose household income is below this level would struggle, without discount or help (the review notes that an increasing number of grandparents are now paying for their grandchildren’s Jewish school fees).