Funding deals urgent

24 June 2024

Thirteen years after the Gonski Review handed down its recommendations for new school funding architecture in Australia, only 1.3 per cent of public schools are at the minimum benchmark, the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), which was agreed to by all governments.

For teachers, education support personnel, parents and students, inequity in school funding is evident in public schools every day.

When a school system is denied essential funding, it is the teaching profession that carries the burden. In Australia, that is manifesting in a teacher workforce crisis with escalating and unsustainable workloads and teacher shortages.

Right now, the Commonwealth and state and territory governments are negotiating the parameters of the next national school funding agreement, one that will be set for five years and which must deliver the urgent funding needed for every school.

Quality public education relies on full funding for teachers, staff, specialists, resources and equipment, and teachers and students deserve to have state of the art buildings that are safe and comfortable.

In the Northern Territory, the federal government has signed a statement of intent to spend an extra $737 million in public schools, doubling its contribution to 40 per cent of the SRS.

And in Western Australia, the state and federal governments have agreed to deliver an additional 5 per cent, with a shortened timeline of 2026. Nonetheless, the NT and WA agreements do not achieve full funding. Instead, schools will be funded to 96 per cent of the SRS under those agreements because the state/territory share is artificially inflated by 4 per cent through an added loophole that allowed inclusion of non-school costs not directly related to students’ education such as capital depreciation. What happens next for public school funding is in the hands of prime minister Anthony Albanese.

Best investment

When the prime minister addressed an AEU event celebrating Public Education Day in May, he noted that the negotiations for full and fair funding for public schools were continuing. He also acknowledged that education is “the single best investment” in Australia’s future.

However, the deal on the table from the federal government is for an additional 2.5 per cent to be matched by state governments. This unfortunately does not achieve 100 per cent of the SRS for all public schools across the nation.

New research shows the inadequacy of public school funding.

Australia’s 6,712 public schools are underfunded by $6.5 billion this year and by at least $6.2 billion every year to 2028 (a total of $31.7 billion over five years) while private schools are overfunded by the Commonwealth and state governments above their full funding level by $686 million this year and by a total of $2.1 billion to 2028.

This is why across Australia, teacher shortages are causing classes to be combined or run without a teacher, and full-time teachers are working an average of 52 hours per week, according to the AEU’s State of our Schools survey.

No Budget capital

Capital funding is another area of critical concern.

In 2017, the Coalition government cut capital funding for public schools while increasing it for private schools. Since then, private schools have received
$1.25 billion while public schools have only had the benefit of federal funding for one year with $216 million for capital works in last year’s budget.

The 2024 Federal Budget should have delivered capital works funding but instead it was silent on the issue with the Albanese Government failing to continue even the modest $216 million.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe urged the government to reconsider its “unacceptable” decision to abandon this funding while at the same time giving private schools $1 billion for new buildings and facilities over the next four years.

“The public knows there is deep inequity in how public schools are funded compared with private schools and this decision just compounds that inequity,” she says.

Overcoming the challenges

Haythorpe says the challenges in schools have never been greater.

“There’s more diversity and complexity in student need, increasing wellbeing and mental health issues and acute shortages of teachers due to unsustainable workloads,” she says.

“Australia’s principals, teachers and education support staff are doing an extraordinary job, but they are being asked to do too much in an underfunded environment.”

Haythorpe has urged the states and the Australian Capital Territory to finalise the funding agreements with the Commonwealth, ensuring that the funding meets the 100 per cent SRS benchmark.