Families spend big on exam prep for scholarships and selective schools

Evan and Noel Zheng are academically about two years ahead of their classmates, NAPLAN results show. The pair have been tutored in maths and English since their first years at primary school.

Janice Zheng tutors her sons in English herself and a tutoring centre near their Point Cook home handles the maths.

Zheng, who moved to Australia from Singapore, said tutoring was common among her peers in the Asian community whose parents grew up valuing academic success.

“It’s all about building confidence in the kids and targeting problem areas,” she said. “I see this as a country full of opportunities.”

Evan, in year six, was recently accepted into St Mary’s College in St Kilda.

He is one of a growing group hoping to gain an edge through tutoring – an industry the Australian Tutoring Association estimates is worth up to $1.5 billion. Around Melbourne, families are paying thousands of dollars for scholarship exam coaching at places promising to improve students’ chances of entry into Victoria’s most competitive schools.

Pre-Uni New College boasts “100 per cent scholarship success in Scotch College” for the exam course it offers in the eastern suburbs. The private college conducted a mock selective exam for 3180 primary school students in Sydney this year, charging $90 a head to participate – earning the organisation $286,000 in a day.

The Australian Council for Educational Research, Academic Assessment Services and Edutest are the three main organisations administering selective school tests in Victoria, helping government and non-government schools identify the academically gifted.

In October, about 1000 students will receive formal offers for year nine spots at one of Victoria’s four government selective-entry schools. More than 3000 others will find out what went wrong during the June entrance exam, when reports are sent out next month.

Most families paid the $170 exam fee, or $390 if they sat it remotely, for a chance at a prized spot at either Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School, the boys-only Melbourne High School in South Yarra, or co-educational selective government schools in Berwick and Werribee.

For those who miss out, entry into a government secondary school offering accelerated learning as part of Victoria’s Academy of Accredited SEAL Schools could be another option – provided they’re in the right catchment area. SEAL stands for select entry accelerated learning.

The 26 metropolitan and 14 regional government secondary schools taking part set the exam fees for entry into accelerated programs designed for gifted students.

Prospective students for Lilydale High School will pay $30 to sit the test this month, while those set on Albert Park College paid $140 in August. Public school parents are encouraged to buy practice exam packages for up to $60 from test providers online.

Brunswick Secondary College won’t take enrolments for its SEAL program in 2025 after a review found “it was no longer necessary to separate high-ability students from their peers to support their learning”.

In their book, Waiting for Gonski: How Australia failed its school system, researchers Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonner argue that separating high achievers from everyone else was one of the biggest drivers of schools’ overall declining performance.

In addition to paying providers to run academic tests – a few schools run their own – most competitive non-government schools filter out the most gifted students through lengthy application processes.

Students in grade three, five and eight this year can compete now for an academic scholarship at high-fee co-educational school Haileybury in 2026. Applicants will undergo a supervised online test first, followed by an in-person test. Children who progress to the third stage will attend an interview with the head of campus.

Hendersons Educational Services in Melbourne’s east charges families up to $6100 for coaching before selective school tests. According to Hendersons, scholarship exams for private schools have a different purpose to ordinary classroom tests.

“While a school exam aims to measure what has already been taught, scholarship exams aim to predict the future achievement of the child,” its website states.

Most scholarships provide a 50 per cent reduction in fees, while some offer 25 per cent or less, Hendersons says. It is rare for a child to receive an offer of 100 per cent fee remission.

Top-performing non-government school Ballarat Clarendon College offers scholarships for students who excel in visual and performing arts, community service and academics. Scholarships are also offered to rural and regional students, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Ross Henderson, head of admissions, said demand for these scholarships had risen over the past decade.

“Ballarat Clarendon College has long been committed to providing a quality education to the people of Ballarat and regional and rural Victoria,” he said.

“The scholarship program plays a vital role in this mission by offering opportunities to students who might not otherwise have access to a quality education.”

Carey Baptist Grammar offers academic and sporting scholarships that usually provide 50 per cent off tuition fees, plus a small number of scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In 2022, Geelong Grammar principal Rebecca Cody reported that close to 25 per cent of students were on some type of scholarship. The school provided $1.5 million towards scholarships that year.

Michael Black, the chief executive of Success Tutoring, said tutoring for selective-entry exam preparation usually started from grade four or five. Exam preparation typically meant three hours of tutoring a week, plus extra study at home, Black said.

He said tutoring was increasingly popular among time-poor parents and those who spoke English as a second language.

“It is competitive, and it continues to become more competitive each year.”

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