The New South Wales government has suggested it will not merge any further public schools in regional areas without community consultation after concerns the so-called “super schools” are failing to achieve improved outcomes.
Super schools have become more common in the past decade as state governments try to improve resource efficiency and boost academic performance at underperforming public schools.
Murrumbidgee Regional high school in Griffith, Murwillumbah Learning Community in Tweed and Armidale Secondary College in New England all opened in the past four years.
The Minns government has announced plans to reverse the merger of the Murwillumbah and Murrumbidgee schools since coming to power in March. No such plan has been announced for Armidale.
A spokesperson for the education minister, Prue Car, told Guardian Australia the previous government had “made a mess” in a number of regional communities by announcing school mergers “without consulting anybody involved”.
“This habit of forcing major upheaval in school communities without engaging beforehand is something we saw … time and time again,” they said. “We are determined not to repeat the mistakes.”
University of NSW education professor Scott Eacott worked on the independent evaluation into Murrumbidgee, which found it had damaged the reputation of public schooling in Griffith and led to poor staff wellbeing.
He said school mergers were motivated by resourcing, performance and a desire to remove the element of competition between public schools that can lead to there being a desired and a less-desired school. In practice, it can lead to a divided school community.
“Staff and students have to find a place,” he said. “You’re taking away the history of the school … things that matter to the community. Yet you’re bringing the cultural baggage and organisational inertia.
“It’s a major issue. The only way they have positive outcomes … is with an explicit and honest articulation of why it’s on the table, even if that’s confronting.”
Eacott said the merger failed in large part because the community was frustrated and was not given the best opportunity to buy into the project. Many of the parents only found out about the merger via social media. That frustration can lead to an exacerbation of the problems the merger was intended to solve: students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and high-performing teachers leave the public system, reducing the performance of the school as a whole.
“Parents who have the most mobility are the ones who leave,” he said.
Eacott said the pressure to merge schools would increase in response to changing demographics in regional areas, meaning there was a need for clear data and “strong processes” to manage the transition.
“It shouldn’t be left to chance,” he said. “They’re really messy situations. If you’re spending millions, there should be an independent process assessing it.
“We want to reduce these inequity gaps. We don’t want regional students to be experimented on.”
Eacott said he offered to review Armidale Secondary College, which opened in 2021, but the education department declined. The school is facing allegations of poor student welfare and bullying, and its attendance and performance have declined.
Eacott said the failure to review the school was “a missed opportunity”.
The parent of a student who attends the secondary college, who is an academic at the University of New England, told Guardian Australia schools in Armidale operated like a “marketplace” where parents with the means to afford one of the regional centre’s six private or religious high schools can shop around.
Families without those means have just one option. Nationwide teacher shortages have made the problem worse.
“It’s a concern for kids going into year 11 and 12,” the parent, who asked not to be identified, said. “If the teacher leaves and nobody else comes, how do you study the HSC?
“Bigger school populations aren’t necessarily best – not all schools will suit all types of children. The experience of Armidale is mergers shouldn’t go ahead.”
• This article was amended on 11 September 2023 to clarify that the NSW government said it would not merge regional schools without consultation. An earlier version also misattributed a quote to the NSW education minister, Prue Car, when it came from a spokesperson from Car’s office.
