A decade of inequity
How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013
Public schools in Australia educate proportionally 2.4 times the number of students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds compared to private schools, 2.7 times the number of First Nations students and a higher number of students from a language background other than English than private schools.
Despite the clear and increasing need of public school students in Australia, under current arrangements private schools across the country will continue to be overfunded by the Commonwealth and state governments by a total of $2.1 billion between 2024 and 2028 while public schools will be underfunded by $31.7 billion over the same five-year time frame.
This situation has arisen through a series of special deals and accommodations made in the 2017 and 2020 amendments to the Act including the introduction of a $1.6 billion dollar “Choice and Affordability Fund” for private schools and $3.4 billion in transitional funding over and above the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to cushion the requirement for private schools to reduce their reliance on government funding down to 100 per cent of SRS by 2029.
Simultaneously, the 2017 changes to the Act capped the Commonwealth contribution to public schools at 20 per cent of SRS and bilateral funding agreements signed by all states and the Northern Territory entrenched underfunding by limiting their contributions to a maximum of 75 per cent of the SRS over extended timelines.
It has been well over a decade since the Review of Funding for Schooling considered the state of school funding in Australia and found that “the cost of this inequity is high; both for individuals who are failing to reach their potential and for the nation as a whole”.
The review called for all levels of government to accept responsibility for “the magnitude of the investment required to improve Australia’s schooling performance and make substantial progress in reducing inequity of educational outcomes” and warned that “a serious commitment to reducing inequity in Australia’s schooling will require significant additional and ongoing resources to make a substantial impact”.
This year, over 150,000 Year 12 students in public schools who started school just a few months after the Review of Funding for Schooling was presented to the Commonwealth will complete their schooling without their schools ever being funded to the SRS – the minimum funding level required to attain minimum acceptable achievement levels.
This report details how delay and partial implementation of the Gonski funding reforms under the Gillard government, followed by nine years of deliberate undermining by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, have broken the promise made by the Gonski Review to Australia’s public school students.
Read more in A decade of inequity.
Number of WA private schools with more public funding than comparable public schools almost doubles over decade
6 September 2024
The extent of inequity in Australia’s school funding has been revealed in new research, showing that almost double the number of private schools in Western Australia now receive more combined government funding (Commonwealth and state) per student than public schools of very similar size, location and with similar student needs.
The Australian Education Union report is being released as Commonwealth, state and territory leaders gather today for the National Cabinet.
Using school finance data, the AEU report ‘A decade of inequity’ reveals:
- In 2013, there were 45 private schools in Western Australia that received more combined government funding (Commonwealth and state) than comparable public schools. By 2022, this had almost doubled to 87 private schools.
- This is an increase from 16.2 per cent of private schools receiving more government funding than comparable public schools to 29.5 per cent over the decade to 2022.
- In 2013 there were two private schools in the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) 1,050+ group [which includes the top quartile of Socio-Educational Advantage (SEA)] funded higher than comparable public schools and by 2022 this had increased sevenfold to 14 schools.
- In the top 15 per cent of SEA (In the 1,100+ ICSEA range) private schools receiving greater government funding than comparable public schools has increased from one to three over the last decade.
- In 2022 the largest gap between a private and public school in the same ICSEA range and same school size group is $3,608 per student.
- Under current settings private schools in Western Australia will continue to be overfunded by the Commonwealth and state governments by a total of $201.7 million from 2024 to 2028 under current arrangements, whilst public schools will remain underfunded by $1.32 billion over the same five year period due to the “additional allowance” of four per cent of total funding claimed for non-school costs by the WA government.
The report compares the combined Commonwealth and state/territory government recurrent funding as reported by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for comparable public and private schools.
The report uses a strict methodology based on the level of SEA, school location and school size to determine comparable public and private schools.
Five conditions must be met for schools to be considered comparable to ensure that only schools of the same type, with very similar student parental and household characteristics, of similar size and in the same jurisdiction are compared.
AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe (pictured) said the shock findings underlined the urgent need for public schools to be fully funded by all governments.
“Some private schools in Western Australia are receiving up to $3,608 per student more in government funding than similar public schools with very similar student profiles, in some cases those schools are just around the corner from each other," she said.
“This unfair private school funding advantage translates into a school resourcing and staffing advantage and has fuelled a private school capital works boom, while at the same time denying public schools the recurrent funding needed to attract and retain teachers and to address the high level of student needs in the classroom.”
President of the State School Teachers' Union of Western Australia Matt Jarman said: “Public schools in Western Australia educate proportionally 2.2 times the number of students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds compared to private schools, and 2.7 times the number of First Nations students. Currently our schools are not getting the funding they need to meet students’ needs."
“The challenges are too great and the cost of inaction too high for governments to continue to fail on funding."
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