No more single-sex schools: why won’t New Zealand build more?

Sunday, 29 March 2026

New Zealand is not planning to build any new single-sex state schools, even as research suggests some students - especially girls in some settings - can do better in them.

That has disappointed principals at single-sex state schools, who say parents should have more choice.

For more than six decades, the state has continued to operate boys’ and girls’ schools where they already existed, but has not added new ones to the network. The result is that single-sex schooling is increasingly a legacy option - concentrated in older centres, limited by geography, and often dependent on whether families can secure an out-of-zone place.

The last single-sex state school built in New Zealand was Westlake Boys’ High School on Auckland’s North Shore in 1961, although charter school Tipene (the former St Stephen's) re-opened last year in Bombay after being closed for 25 years, as a full-time boarding school for Māori and Pacific boys.

Now, with a roll of more than 2700, Westlake Boys is one of the country’s top academic performers - recently ranked 18th in Crimson Education’s Top 50 schools list - but is nearing capacity.

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Principal Paul Fordham said Westlake Boys remained the only single-sex state school on the North Shore.

“I think that’s a shame, because it removes choice from people when we’re having to restrict whether or not we’re able to take out-of-zone students,” he said.

“If families feel that what we offer is suitable for their sons, it would be great for them to be able to come to our school. But, as I say, that’s probably going to change in the future.”

Fordham said choice mattered because different types of schools suited different students and families.

“They’re different environments, different cultures, and sometimes they meet the needs of the students in a different way. I’m not suggesting one’s right or wrong. It’s just a different offering.”

The Ministry of Education is not planning to build any more single-sex schools. - not because of a hostility to single-sex schooling, but because of how it plans for a modern and sustainable network.

In comments attributed to acting Hautū (Leader) Operations and Integration Julia Hardacre, the Ministry said it worked with schools and communities to understand what form of provision would best meet need, but “generally plan[s] for and provide[s] co-educational schools to meet the forecast network demand and need”.

It said not all communities had access to all types of schools, though all communities had the right to a local school that was reasonably convenient. Families wanting something different could enrol at a school without a zone, seek an out-of-zone place, or use the state-integrated or private sectors.

The official response did not directly frame the issue as a cost decision.

But a 2021 Ministry briefing said “constructing a single co-ed campus is more cost effective than building more schools”.

Wellington Girls’ College principal Julia Davidson said it was “no surprise” no more single-sex schools were being built.

“But it’s a shame because I think kids benefit from choice and going to a school that works well for them.”

Davidson said girls’ schools could also offer a greater sense of safety.

“One of the things I always love here is, when we do our swimming sports, nobody wears a T-shirt or shorts. They just wear their swimming gear because no one’s going to have a go at them.”

She said boys’ and girls’ schools tended to be concentrated in older, larger centres such as Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington because they reflected an English tradition.

“Maybe they were seen as a bit snooty - we’re a fairly egalitarian country.”

New Zealand’s decision to stop building single-sex schools means access is uneven.

Families in smaller towns or newer suburbs often have no realistic opportunity to attend one.

Co-education is overwhelmingly the norm. In 2021, there were 2369 state and state-integrated co-educational schools, compared with 98 single-sex schools. Just 11% of all students - and 20% of secondary students - attended single-sex schools.

The value of single-sex schooling has long been debated among parents and educators.

Research suggests there can be advantages for boys’ and girls’ schools in some circumstances.

A 2020 report commissioned by the Alliance of Girls’ Schools Australasia examined results from the international schools study PISA.

It found girls’ schools performed strongly on measures including academic achievement in science, mathematics and literacy; academic engagement; teacher effectiveness; enthusiasm for science; school belonging; lower rates of bullying; and higher academic aspirations.

A newer New Zealand study, published in 2024 in the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, reached a narrower conclusion.

Using data from the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the authors found girls from lower socio-economic backgrounds and boys from higher socio-economic backgrounds at single-gender secondary schools had significantly higher maths and science scores than their peers in co-educational settings.

“This success is particularly striking for girls in low socio-economic settings.”

However, the researchers could not establish causation, because they could not rule out the possibility that academically stronger students were more likely to enrol in single-sex schools.

Their conclusion was blunt: recommending more gender-segregated schools would be “premature and unjustified”.

Across the Tasman, Australia is grappling with the same question. Research there has found students in co-educational schools can learn at the same speed as, or faster than, their peers in single-sex schools.

In New South Wales, the state government has been moving to convert some public single-sex high schools to co-educational schools as part of a promise that every family will have the option of choosing a co-ed public high school by 2027.

The shift reflects growing demand for co-educational schooling.

For Davidson, though, the benefits of girls’ schools remain clear. Having worked in both co-educational and single-sex settings, she said she had seen positive effects in each - but believed girls’ schools offered something distinctive.

“Girls’ schools offer something that is quite special … because they’re not being muscled out, for want of a better term, to do things. They have to do everything and so I think it gives them an amazing opportunity.”