Private, single sex schools key to uni scores, National Centre of Vocational Education Research report found

AUSTRALIA: Large, private and single-sex schools help students achieve higher university entrance scores, research shows.

A National Centre of Vocational Education Research report found school characteristics had a significant impact on scores.

Managing director Tom Karmel said schools which were "different", such as single-sex schools or those that grouped kids based on academic ability, did better. "The findings confirm while individual student characteristics and background are the main drivers for university enrolment and entrance rankings, schools really do matter," Dr Karmel said.

The research also showed the proportion of highly qualified teachers had little impact on student scores and small schools had a negative effect.

"Typically bigger schools have more resources and flexibility. The independent and Catholic schools do better than government schools on average," Dr Karmel said.

"It is interesting most of the influential school characteristics identified in the study are linked to the culture of the school.

"The rest are factors we can't measure, but are really important such as educational leadership. Parents will have to use their own judgment to find out about the school."

Another finding revealed socio-economic status of a school community had little effect on scores, but did have a negative impact on a student's likelihood to enrol in university.

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