The effect of abolishing the New Schools Policy on the provision of schools and enrolments in Australia

Australia has been an enthusiastic embracer of school choice and has one of the highest levels of public funding for non-government schools. The 1996 election of John Howard's conservative government is a point of interest as it is often framed as a period of political and ideological attacks on public schooling. A key policy move was the abolishment of the New Schools Policy. The New Schools Policy withheld public funds from helping to establish new non-government schools in areas where there was already adequate supply. Using large-scale data sets on supply (number of schools) and demand (enrolment), time-series analysis demonstrates that while the non-government schools have grown (in real and market share terms), the abolishment of the New Schools Policy did not lead to a shock in enrolment numbers. However, the subtle shift from a needs-based to entitlement logic fundamentally altered the landscape of Australian school-based education ever since.