The City of Parramatta is well on the way to becoming an education capital. The City’s education and training sector is already a $1.2 billion industry. It employed nearly 12,000 workers in 2019-20 and has been one of the fastest growing industries in Parramatta for employment, growing by almost 70 per cent over the last 10 years. More than 25,000 university students are currently enrolled across the City’s campuses.
Parramatta is already home to five universities — Western Sydney University, University of Sydney, University of New England, Swinburne University of Technology and Charles Sturt University, and it’s set to grow when UNSW Sydney opens a local campus shortly.
Sydney University will also establish a brand-new campus at North Parramatta in the Westmead Health Precinct where 25,000 students and 2,500 staff are predicted to work by 2055.
The education focus is not only on the tertiary sector. The NSW Department of Education relocated to Parramatta in 2018, bringing 1,800 jobs into the City and leasing 25,000 square metres of office space in Phillip Street.
Universities working together in Parramatta
In 2021, Council launched the ground-breaking EducateAT Parramatta Alliance, uniting universities that have a presence in Parramatta to advocate for, and attract talent to, the centre of global Sydney.
The alliance has one key goal – to help Parramatta become the best city in Australia for students to study and succeed.
The alliance includes Western Sydney University, University of Sydney, UNSW Sydney, University of New England, Swinburne University of Technology, and the Western Sydney Local Health District, who all signed the EducateAT Parramatta Charter at the launch last year.
The future is bright
Western Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Barney Glover said of the EducateAT Parramatta Alliance “There is no more vibrant place in Australia to commit an alliance focused on education. Education can be the lifeblood of this city.
“We have a chance to make Parramatta an extraordinary university city. This alliance will help us to do that. It will become a smart city in every sense of the word.
“Under the vision, the university hub could be a stronger economic driver than Western Sydney International Airport and boost the number of local and international students to Parramatta.
“To give you an idea, 65,000 international students are in New York and 90,000 are in London so Sydney’s one of the great international cities for education in the world,’’ he said.