The census by definition is for people WHO LIVE in a country where it’s conducted, but apparently that’s not the case in Australia where they even make it mandatory for non-citizens (tourists) when they are only visitors (who DO NOT live in Australia in the first place), the logic doesn’t make any sense. Like if, a tourist should not be forced to do it since they hold a foreign passport and have no residential address in Australia.
Oh man.
What if the school had some data like… Oh I don’t know… The number of enrolments of 4 year olds for the last n years. That would certainly be an interesting data point.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all to suggest that people are making these decisions with census data.
State education departments don’t have surplus funds. There are no schools sitting empty because someone is waiting for the census to tell them there are no students in the area. Likewise there are no schools being built because the census says there are some 3 year olds I’m the area.
Education departments allocate their scarce resources based on enrolments. That’s it.
Seriously, this is truly the dumbest example.
So an entire federal government department spends millions and millions of dollars to collect all this information for it to not be used?
You are incorrect. ABS data informs education departments routinely. Again, please do at least a minimal amount of searching before you plop onto the Internet and just confidently say random shit with authority.
https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/schools-methodology/2024
https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/srp-core-student-learning-allocation/guidance/rural-school-size-adjustment-factor