Earlier in the year, we conducted our “Member Survey on Experience of School Education’’. Thank you to over 500 members across our longer-term ASG membership and our newer Futurity members who responded.



Our survey showed that Futurity is helping our Members to plan for, save and afford more tailored and specialised education opportunities for their children and grandchildren compared to the general population.



A clear example is external tutoring. Almost 40% of our Members dedicate some amount of their spending toward tutoring, compared with only 10% of the general population. Our Members are also able to spend more on tutoring than most, with two thirds spending more than $1,000 per annum. The general population largely spend less than $1,000 per annum.



Our data also shows that the number one barrier to choice of schooling is cost. In 2020, our data shows that 5% of our memebers reported this as the number one barrier to sending their children to the school of their choice, while in 2023 that figure has increased dramatically to 31%.



A key finding is that our members are generally more intentional than the broader public when it comes to preparing for the cost of educating their children. In fact, 64% of members have been “extremely’’ or “very’’ intentional about preparing for the cost of educating their child whereas for the general public it was less than half.



As mentioned, in 2023 our data shows that almost 40% of members (an increase from 28% in 2020), choose to pay for private tutoring outside of the classroom, compared to only 10% of the general public. And members also spend more. The average annual spend on private tutoring from the 2023 Futurity member survey was $2727, while our public survey showed an average spend of $1675.



Another comparison worth highlighting is spending on musical instruments. For our members, the proportion who bought musical instruments was almost double that of the general population 38% vs 19% respectively).



In other findings this year:

• 94% of member parents agree they are “excited about their child’s education’’ compared to 74% of the general public.

• Similar proportions are “actively helping prepare their children financially for their future education’’.

• The number one cause of satisfaction with a school is “teacher quality’’ across all surveys.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank the many members who entered our Competition and answered the question "How would you improve the Australian education system?"



Our judges chose a winner whose answer accords well with Futurity’s vision:

“More opportunities/funding for young people for apprenticeships/traineeships. Learning is life-long. Going back to study to complete my Masters as mature-age student opened up my world, gave me a new career, wonderful opportunities I would never have had without it. More support for older Adults to retrain or undertake higher learning.’’



Congratulations to our winner, Antoinette M of Perth. We hope you enjoy your $200 Dymocks voucher.