Education in Ballarat may be divided into a four groups: pre-school, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. Ballarat is home to two universities and many primary and secondary schools. Entry to tertiary education for most students is through the Victorian secondary school system where students are ranked by the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) upon completion of Year 12.
Ballarat offers 37 preschool institutions. [1] They are located in the suburbs of Alfredton, Bakery Hill, Ballarat Central, Ballarat East, Ballarat North, Black Hill, Brown Hill, Delcombe, Lake Gardens, Lake Wendouree, Mount Clear, Mount Helen, Mount Pleasant, Redan, Sebastopol, Soldiers Hill and Wendouree, and the townships of Buninyong, Cardigan, Creswick and Miners Rest.
Education in the city is overseen by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), whose role is to 'provide policy and planning advice for the delivery of education'. [2]
The City of Ballarat lists 55 primary schools within the district, however many of these schools are not in the city. [3] The primary schools in Blowhard, Bungaree, Buninyong, Cape Clear, Clunes, Creswick, Haddon, Lal Lal, Miners Rest, Napoleons, Ross Creek, Warrenheip and Waubra are all serviced by the Ballarat Council.
The city has ten secondary colleges, consisting of four government, three Catholic and three other non-governmental schools. [4]
| Crest | High School | Founded | Location | Enrolment | Type | Median Study Score (2016) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballarat Christian College | 1985 | Sebastopol | 176 [5] | Ecumenical, co-ed, day | 29 [6] | |
| Ballarat Clarendon College | 1864 | Ballarat | 796 [7] | Uniting, co-ed, day&boarding | 37 [6] | |
| Ballarat Grammar School | 1911 | Wendouree | 932 [8] | Anglican, co-ed, day&boarding | 32 [6] | |
 | Ballarat High School | 1907 | Ballarat | 1439 [9] | Government, co-ed, day | 28 [6] |
| Woodman's Hill | 1978 | Ballarat East | 684 [10] | Government, co-ed, day | 28 [6] | |
 | Damascus College | 1881 | Mount Clear | 1051 [11] | Catholic, co-ed, day | 28 [6] |
 | Loreto College | 1875 | Ballarat | 898 [12] | Catholic, girls, day | 31 [6] |
 | Mount Clear College | 1976 | Mount Clear | 1034 [13] | Government, co-ed, day | 24 [6] |
| Phoenix College | 2011 | Sebastopol | 903 [14] | Government, co-ed, day | 26 [6] | |
| St Patrick's College | 1893 | Ballarat | 1404 [15] | Catholic, boys, day&boarding | 29 [6] |
With two internationally accredited Universities located within Ballarat Federation University Australia (formerly the University of Ballarat) and the Australian Catholic University, Aquinas Campus, the city is well served for all aspects of higher education. [16]
The Campus began in the establishment of the Aquinas Training College by the Ballarat East Sisters of Mercy in 1909. It later became known as Sacred Heart Training College because of its association with Sacred Heart College, now Damascus College. [17]
In the mid-1960s with increasing enrolments and the demands of a growing school population, the College moved to Patrician House in Victoria Street, Ballarat. [17]
In 1973 the property at 1200 Mair Street, until then the Queen's Church of England Girls' Grammar School, was purchased by the Sisters of St John of God, who conduct St John of God Ballarat Hospital. In turn, the property was purchased by the Diocese of Ballarat and became the new site of the Catholic teachers' college, which was initially known as Aquinas College. [17]
Initially the Institute was concerned predominantly with the preparation of primary teachers for Catholic schools, but by 1980 it had accredited courses concerned with post-primary education, nursing, religious education and church music, among others. [17]
In 1990 the Aquinas formally handed responsibility for the Institute and its operations to ACU. [17]
Today, the Ballarat Campus of ACU has around 1000 students, [18] making it the smallest of the city's universities.
Federation University has a long history in Ballarat. The product of the amalgamation of the University of Ballarat and the Gippsland Campus of Monash University in 2014, [19] the University has its earliest origins as the Ballarat School of Mines in 1870.
The School of Mines became known as SMB (the School of Mines and Industries, Ballarat) in 1976, which was the governing body of three Ballarat schools; the Ballarat School of Industries, Ballarat Technical School and the Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education. These schools became the University of Ballarat in 1990, incorporating different schools from Ararat, Stawell and Horsham. SMB also controlled Ballarat Junior Technical School and Ballarat Girls' Junior Technical School which formed Mount Clear College. [19]
Ballarat is a city located on the Yarrowee River in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. The city has a population of 105,471.
Australian Catholic University (ACU) is a public university in Australia. It has seven Australian campuses, and also maintains a campus in Rome. In 2018 it had 34,834 students.
The City of Ballarat is a local government area in the west of the state of Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of 739 square kilometres (285 sq mi) and, in June 2018, had a population of 107,325. It is primarily urban with the vast majority of its population living in the Greater Ballarat urban area, while other significant settlements within the LGA include Buninyong, Waubra, Learmonth and Addington. It was formed in 1994 from the amalgamation of the City of Ballaarat, Shire of Ballarat, Borough of Sebastopol and parts of the Shire of Bungaree, Shire of Buninyong, Shire of Grenville and Shire of Ripon.
The Ballarat Cricket Association is a cricket league which runs in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The league has different divisions for under-13s, two grades of under-15s, 1 grade under-17s and three 2-day senior grades as well as a one-day competition with 2 grades. The league also has select teams for different competitions, as well as for the 'Country Week' competition against teams such as Maryborough, Grampians, Castlemaine and Bendigo.
Creswick is a town in west-central Victoria, Australia 18 kilometres north of Ballarat and 122 km northwest of Melbourne, in the Shire of Hepburn. It is 430 metres above sea level. At the 2016 census, Creswick had a population of 3,170. Creswick was named after the Creswick family, the pioneer settlers of the region.
The University of Ballarat, or Ballarat University, Australia was a dual-sector university with multiple campuses in Victoria, Australia, including its main Ballarat campus, Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide that were authorized by the University to provide diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The university offered traditional programs, including business, information technology, building and construction, engineering, mining, education, social sciences, nursing, hospitality, and art.
Damascus College is Ballarat’s only Catholic co-educational secondary college. It was established after three separate Catholic colleges, St Martin's in the Pines, Sacred Heart College and St Paul's College amalgamated. The college is located on a treed 20 hectare campus in Mount Clear, 7 km from Ballarat's central business district. Damascus College is a day school for secondary students in years 7 to 12.
Loreto College, Victoria is an independent Roman Catholic secondary day school for girls, located in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
Lake Wendouree is a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia located immediately west of the Ballarat central business district. It encompasses the man-made recreational lake Lake Wendouree, after which it is named. At the 2016 census, Lake Wendouree had a population of 2,882.
Wendouree is a large suburb on the north western rural-urban fringe of the city of Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia. It is the most populated suburb in the City of Ballarat with a total of 10,445 inhabitants counted at the 2016 Census.
The University of Santo Tomas–Legazpi (UST–Legazpi), formerly Aquinas University of Legazpi (AUL), is a Catholic University in Legazpi City, Philippines run and owned by the Dominican Fathers/Order of Preachers (OP). It was founded by Don Buenaventura de Erquiaga in 1948 as Legazpi Junior Colleges; the name subsequently changed to Legazpi College, and it became a university in 1968.
The City of Ballaarat was a local government area covering the inner suburbs of the regional city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of 34.52 square kilometres (13.3 sq mi), and existed from 1855 until 1994.
Ballarat Secondary College is a multi-campus college, formed in 1993 by the amalgamation of three existing secondary colleges. The college now comprises two campuses, Woodman's Hill and Mount Rowan, each having different uniforms, crests and administrations. The school has applied to have both campuses registered as separate schools and is awaiting formal approval. In 2016, Ballarat Secondary College improved VCE scores by 20 percent. Over a five-year period, 2012 to 2016, the school was the fourth most improved in VCE performance in Victoria.
Mount Clear is a semi-rural suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia south of the CBD in the Canadian Creek Valley. At the 2016 census, Mount Clear had a population of 3,390.
The Yarrowee River is a perennial river of the Corangamite catchment, located in the Central Highlands region of the Australian state of Victoria.
Federation University Australia (FedUni) is a public, dual-sector university based in Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. The university also has campuses in Ararat, Horsham, Stawell, Churchill, Berwick, and Brisbane, as well as online technical and further education (TAFE) courses and Horsham's Higher Education Nursing program.
Sacred Heart College was an all girls school in Ballarat, Victoria. The school was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1881 and closed in 1994 preceding the amalgamation of the College with St Martin's in the Pines and St Paul's Technical College to form Damascus College Ballarat.
Mount Clear College, formerly known as Mount Clear Secondary College and Mount Clear Technical High School, is a public high school in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It was established after two secondary colleges, Ballarat Boys' Technical School and Ballarat Girls' High School amalgamated in 1981. The college is located in Mount Clear, 7 km from Ballarat's central business district.