Sydney Schools and Education Guide: Public, Private, and Selective

Sydney's education landscape is one of Australia's most diverse and most competitive: the city's extraordinary range of government selective high schools (20 fully selective schools, the largest selective school system in Australia), the extensive Catholic and independent school sector (the prestigious GPS and CAS sporting competitions include some of Australia's most academically and athletically outstanding schools), the Group of Eight research universities (the University of Sydney and UNSW are both internationally ranked in the world's top 50-100 universities), and the large TAFE NSW vocational education network together create an education system of extraordinary variety and depth. Navigating Sydney's education landscape is challenging for new residents, and the choices made at primary school entry often have significant implications for the secondary and tertiary education paths available to children.

Selective High Schools — the NSW Department of Education operates 20 fully selective government high schools in Sydney, in which all students are admitted on the basis of academic performance in the NSW Selective Schools test (a competitive examination sat in Year 6, with approximately 15,000 applicants competing for approximately 4,000 places across the 20 selective schools). The most prestigious selective schools (James Ruse Agricultural High School, Sydney Girls High School, North Sydney Boys High School, North Sydney Girls High School, and Baulkham Hills High School) consistently produce NSW's highest HSC results and send a disproportionate share of students to the most competitive university courses. Entry to Sydney's top selective high schools is extremely competitive, and many families invest significantly in selective school preparation programs from Year 3 or 4 onwards.

Public Schools and the Local Enrolment Area System — Sydney's government (public) school system is operated by the NSW Department of Education and consists of approximately 1,200 primary and secondary schools across the Sydney metropolitan area. Public school enrolment is based on the local enrolment area (the catchment zone assigned to each school), and the quality of local government schools varies significantly between suburbs. The inner-city suburbs and affluent North Shore and Eastern Suburbs areas typically have strong government primary schools, while the government secondary schools in these areas are often less well-regarded than the selective schools and the local private alternatives.

Universities and TAFE — Sydney is home to five major universities: the University of Sydney (Australia's oldest university, founded 1850, ranked in the world's top 50-100), the University of New South Wales (UNSW, globally top 50 in engineering and technology), Macquarie University (strong in business, linguistics, and biological sciences), the University of Technology Sydney (UTS, the largest technology university in NSW), and Western Sydney University (the largest university by enrolment in Sydney, with multiple campuses across the greater west). The TAFE NSW network (the largest vocational education provider in NSW) provides trade apprenticeships, certificate and diploma courses, and degree programs across hundreds of fields.

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