Case Study

A State high school was experiencing rapid growth in enrolments, which seemed to indicate the need for capital investment in additional accommodation. This led to a proposal for a new school.

First-level analysis supported the case for a new facility. This conclusion was backed by a considerable residential development in the immediate vicinity, fuelling an increase in the school-age population.

The department conducted an investigation to explore options to relieve the growth pressure. The question of location arose.

As part of the investigation, a survey was conducted of final year students at the feeder primary school. This indicated a potential pattern of enrolment at the 'case study' school from a wide geographic catchment, even though there were State high schools located closer to their residential address. It was evident that two established State high schools were losing enrolments to the new school.

As it happened, each of the established schools had excess capacity and could therefore accept increased enrolments to take up the emerging demand, at least for the foreseeable future.

A recommendation was made to refer students whose addresses fell within the specified catchment areas to the high school servicing that area.

In other words, the access to a proposed service was restricted to people living within a prescribed area.

This meant that the demand at the time (and for the next five years) was not sufficient to justify the provision of new facilities at the 'case study' school.

As a result, the established schools were upgraded to enable them to accept additional enrolments.

More detailed investigations indicated that the perceived growth in demand was not substantiated. Owing to the community perception that a new school would provide superior services and facilities, the demand appeared to justify the proposed new development.

Active intervention in the market enabled the demand to be managed within existing resources.

As a result, the need for a new school to service the area was deferred for an estimated five years, resulting in savings of millions of dollars.

This case study illustrates application of the following Demand Management techniques:

• Market segmentation- The investigation revealed the pattern of enrolments for the geographic catchments of two other schools. The targeting of each region with a different (but appropriate) policy decision is an example of this principle.
• Product/service differentiation- In this instance, the community had a perception of a differentiation in the service (i.e. that the new school had more modern facilities and thus provided the more attractive service). The lesson here is that these principles can, in some instances, be applied in reverse. Service planners need to be aware of this, and develop marketing strategies to counter such service differentiation being applied by the community.
• System generated demand- A proportion of the enrolment at the `case study' school arose from the simple fact that a new school was available and there was therefore an increase in the choices from which an enrolment selection could be made. While the total demand did not change, the level of demand on one resource was increased at the expense of another. This created pressures of different forms, particularly on the efficient utilization of assets to satisfy the overall demand.