School's in on gender imbalance

AN exclusive Melbourne school is seeking an exemption from anti-discrimination laws to get a better balance between boys and girls.

Bayside school Cornish College is concerned about the make-up of several classes and has applied to VCAT to advertise for boys or girls only, depending on the year level.

The school has only five boys in the second grade, compared with 11 girls.

The Bangholme college, near Chelsea, opened this year after taking over from the previous school on the site, St Leonard’s College.

It offers kindergarten to year 9 classes and is due to expand into VCE in the coming years.

The Uniting Church-backed school would not say whether it planned to deny applicants based on their gender.

The school was coy yesterday when contacted by the Herald Sun, saying it hoped to correct the gender imbalance by next year.

According to court documents, the school wants to be allowed to advertise “for gender-specific students at particular levels affected by the present imbalance”.

Business manager Martin Massey said the problem was across a number of year levels. It is believed the lack of year 2 boys is the school’s most pressing concern.

“We have a number of year levels where the gender balance is a concern and we wish to be able to make the gender balance as equal as possible,” Mr Massey wrote to the tribunal.

“Co-education is reliant upon the enrolment of similar numbers of both boys and girls and accordingly the college wishes to improve the gender balance at the affected year levels.”

But the tribunal is yet to grant the school’s anti-discrimination application, saying it wants a better breakdown of the gender situation.

Parents last night backed the school’s bid.

“It’s a private school so I think they should be free to advertise for whoever they want,” Anita White said.