A leading demographer says the Gold Coast will need to open up a new school each year to keep pace with local population growth.
Existing schools will also need to cater towards higher student numbers to absorb the annual influx of 2000-plus school-aged children.
Social researcher and demographer Mark McCrindle of McCrindle Research told the Bulletin there had been a 25 per cent increase in student numbers over the past decade as schools were flooded with more than 20,000 students from 2006 to 2016.
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“Have we added 25 per cent more schools or capacity?” he said.
“The answer is no. The number of new students is going up per annum, that’s why there’s some of these bottlenecks.”
According to a 2015 report by demographer Bernard Salt, the Coast will have a population of 1.2 million by 2050 and needs 35 new schools by then. Source: Gold Coast Bulletin.
