The ACT's public primary schools and colleges are growing but Canberra parents still prefer to send their children to private high schools.
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The latest education census shows the city's government schools had 3.9 per cent more students in August than a year earlier.
Yet while primary schools (up 4.3 per cent) and colleges (up 2.8 per cent) expanded, public high school enrolments fell marginally (down 0.6 per cent).
The ACT remains the only state or territory in which a majority of junior high students – those in years 7 to 10 – attend non-government schools.
In February, just under half of Canberra's high school students attended public schools. In contrast, about 59 per cent of high school students elsewhere in Australia were enrolled in the government system last year.
The Association of Independent Schools' ACT executive director, Andrew Wrigley, cautioned against comparing Canberra, a "city-state", with states, because Canberra lacked a sizeable rural community.
But he said the trend of ACT students opting out of the public system during high school had "been in evidence for a few years".
"Schools in each sector are highly valued by the community, and the choice of particular schools reflects the choice of parents," he said.
"Independent schools work to provide an education of excellence, as well as all of the other components of schooling they offer, such as pastoral care and cocurricular offerings.
"These are things that people in the ACT balance and weigh up, and then hopefully make informed decisions about which school is the best fit for their children."
Mr Wrigley said the three sectors – government, Catholic and independent – worked very closely and improvements in one sector helped the others.
The Australian Education Union said the latest growth in public enrolments was encouraging and a sign of the "outstanding achievements of our local public schools".
However, ACT branch secretary Glenn Fowler warned that the city's government schools would need more money if they continued to grow.
"Under the discredited Howard funding model, ACT public schools received less than a third of school funding flowing from the Commonwealth," he said.
"Continued enrolment growth in this context is a testimony to our outstanding teachers, school leaders and school assistants. It's crucial the needs-based, sector-blind Gonski funding system introduced this year continues to be implemented."
The Canberra Times reported last month that almost a quarter of Canberra's public schools could be overcrowded within three years.
An internal government paper showed that 10 schools were already near or over their official enrolment limits, the worst-affected being North Ainslie, Garran and Ngunnawal primary schools and Lyneham High School.
