The time has come to fully fund our public schools

02 December 2024

Australia’s public schools will be underfunded by billions of dollars unless the prime minister steps up and provides the funding certainty needed.

It is now more than a decade since the review led by David Gonski outlined the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – the minimum amount required to meet the needs of students. During that time, only 1.3 per cent of public schools have reached 100 per cent of the SRS, with most facing chronic resource shortages.

This systemic failure of governments to provide adequate funding has had a devastating impact on the teaching profession – escalating workloads and creating a chronic workforce shortage.

Public schools now risk another decade of underfunding, locked in by the Better And Fairer Schools Funding Agreement.

Despite a commitment from the prime minister to fully fund Australia’s public schools, the current offer from the Commonwealth delivers underfunding of at least $1.4 billion a year for the next four years.

The states and territories that have not signed a bilateral agreement risk receiving no extra funding above the current levels. Western Australia and Tasmania have signed agreements, accepting the government’s offer of a 2.5 per cent extra increase, for a total SRS of 22.5 per cent.

Both WA and Tasmania have until 2026 to reach their funding benchmark, meaning schools will remain funded below 100 per cent for at least another two years.

The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia are yet to sign agreements and are asking for the full 25 per cent.

The deal signed with the Northern Territory, however, is broadly welcomed and provides an historic funding increase, in which the federal government will provide 40 per cent of schools funding and the NT government will fund the remaining 60 per cent by 2029.

But there is a standoff between the Albanese government and jurisdictions yet to sign up.

Most state governments have taken the view that they will hold out for a better offer, rather than sign up to a deal that will entrench inequality for another decade. It is a brave move which also carries a high level of risk, given that minister for education Jason Clare warned states to sign up now or get status quo funding for 2025.

The minister acknowledged the 5 per cent gap in a speech to parliament, saying that: “At the last election we promised ‘to work with all states and territories to get all public schools on a path to 100 per cent of the SRS’”.

The 22.5 per cent funding offered by the Commonwealth would leave public schools short of the required resources to meet the SRS, says Centre for Future Work director Jim Stanford, the author of a new report, Leaving Money on the Table: Foregone Economic Gains from Continued SRS Underfunding.

The report argues that failing to fulfil the 25 per cent Commonwealth contribution required for full SRS funding would mean annual net costs to governments of all levels of $0.6 to $1.5 billion and foregone GDP gains of $3.5 to $5 billion.

Stanford says research in both Australia and overseas confirms the “substantial” economic and fiscal benefits of well-funded and accessible public schools.

Senate reviews agreement

Legislation cementing the funding deal has already been introduced into federal parliament.

A senate inquiry into the Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Bill 2024 is due to report on 18 November. Those interested in commenting on the Bill were given just nine days to lodge a submission, however hundreds and hundreds of people took up the opportunity to provide a strong message to the Albanese government via the submission process.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says the failure to negotiate the funding agreements and the uncertainty for schools is extraordinary.

“It’s a shocking scenario. Schools across the nation will be on different pathways and timelines now,” she says.

“The state you live in will determine whether or not you’re in an under-resourced school system.”

Meanwhile, the education minister’s move to increase the proposed floor doesn’t go far enough, Haythorpe says.

The floor, or minimum federal government contribution, is 20 per cent, which was previously the maximum contribution.

Haythorpe welcomes the removal of the 20 per cent cap on Commonwealth funding but says the floor should be set higher, not only to avoid future cuts in funding but to meet the government’s acknowledged needs of every child in public schools.

She is also dismayed at the extension of the funding deal to 10 years, saying that “resources delayed are resources denied”.

“It is teachers and their students who carry the burden of this failure of governments to fund our schools properly,” Haythorpe says.

Industrial action underway

The AEU has placed a nationwide high-level ban on the implementation of the Commonwealth’s Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, particularly any initiatives that are unfunded and that will increase workloads.

This ban will remain in place until the AEU federal executive determines there is a genuine pathway for all public schools to achieve the minimum 100 per cent SRS.

“The Albanese government cannot implement reforms without providing proper funding to pay for them,” says Haythorpe.

“Under the current circumstances the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is not better, and it is not fairer for teachers and students.

“If it is implemented without the full resources needed for public schools, it will increase the workload of an already stretched teaching profession,” she says.

Meanwhile, the federal government is under pressure from the Greens and a coalition of crossbench senators, including senators David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and Fatima Payman, to invest more in public schools.

Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne says Labor’s deal locks in another decade of underfunding for public schools, “cementing Australia’s school system as one of the OECD’s most unequal and segregated”.

“Public school parents, carers and teachers know that this is a cruel and visionless approach to public schooling,” Allman-Payne says.

“I am seriously concerned that the government intends to set and forget their contribution to public schooling at 22.5 per cent or lower – when it should be at least 25 per cent – thereby locking in another generation of disadvantage.”

Allman-Payne says claims by Jason Clare and Anthony Albanese that the deals signed with WA and Tasmania represented full funding had been found to be misleading by AAP FactCheck as they include a loophole that allows for four per cent of non-school costs not directly related to students' education to count towards SRS.

This includes capital depreciation, school transport and curriculum and registration fees.

“Public schools are currently underfunded by $32 billion across the next five years and this deal will not bridge that gap,” she says.

Senator David Pocock says he supports a 25 per cent floor for federal government funding of public schools.

“We can’t skimp on funding for public schools,” he says.

Senator Jacqui Lambie says the “significant difference” in funding between private schools and public schools is unfair.

Agreement fails on equity

Finnish education expert and University of Melbourne professor Pasi Sahlberg says the goal of the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement to improve learning outcomes is severely challenged because of a failure to define equity.

The agreement is tied to “real, practical reforms” and includes targets and measures to “make sure this money glows in the dark”, minister for education Jason Clare told parliament.

But Sahlberg, who was a member of the expert panel appointed by Clare to inform a better and fairer education system, says it’s important to have a common understanding of what a fair education looks like “otherwise people just keep on doing their own thing, believing in their own conceptions of equity”.

He says it’s also important that the targets make sense.

For example, one measure in the agreement is to achieve a 7.5 per cent increase – the number of all students completing Year 12. But there are no specific targets for students from regional and remote areas, or those from low socio-economic backgrounds, Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students.

Sahlberg says that the 7.5 per cent could almost all be achieved by advantaged students, causing equity to decline.

“For me, a fairer education in Australia would mean, among some other things, that these achievement gaps between those socio-economically disadvantaged students and the most affluent students would narrow,” he says.

“And I think in my mind, the big issue with this current formulation of equity targets is that it allows governments to say that we have met these learning equity targets but education outcomes would actually become more inequitable.”

In another example of nonsensical targets, the agreement plans to use the NAPLAN literacy and numeracy scores as measures, but fails to include other literacy areas such as writing, spelling, grammar and pronunciation.

Sahlberg says this may allow governments to claim improvements in higher NAPLAN bands, but it leaves behind lower performing students who may need more support.

“It's far too narrow to design and set these targets just by looking at the literacy and numeracy. Schools have many more important outcomes that are becoming more and more relevant for many people than just literacy and numeracy,” he says.

When you say ‘fully funded’

Under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, the Commonwealth is calculating “fully funded” as 96 per cent of SRS rather than the usual 100 per cent.

Education minister Jason Clare told parliament that Western Australia and Tasmania, the two states that have signed up to the funding agreement with the Commonwealth, would be fully funded by 2026.

But an accounting trick allows the states to spend four per cent of their federal SRS funding on non-SRS measurers such as capital depreciation, school transport and regulatory costs.

Former Productivity Commission economist Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools Australia says that it is incorrect to include these non-school funds in the SRS pointing to contradictions made by official documents and the minister’s previous statements.

“Clare is continuing the fraud conjured up between the Morrison government and the states that have swindled public schools of $13.1 billion in funding,” he says.

Cobbold says the SRS is measured on net recurrent income per student in a system established with input from major consultancy firms and an official working group of the Australian Curriculum Reporting Authority.

“They arrived at a very clear definition of what's to be excluded
from net recurrent income per student. In particular, they were explicit about excluding capital depreciation, school transport and the costs of regulatory agencies such as curriculum authorities and teacher registration boards,” he says.

Cobbold says that while the costs are education system expenses, it was acknowledged that they’re not part of delivering services to classrooms.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe says the federal government has the opportunity to come to the table with the funding needed to ensure all public schools reach 100 per cent of the SRS.

She says that what is currently offered will entrench underfunding for another generation.

“Prime minister Albanese has committed to making sure that no Australian child is left behind. By fully funding schools the prime minister can not only deliver on that promise, he will be creating a legacy for our teachers and our children and change the future of Australia’s public schools.”

“It is up to the For Every Child community and the electorate to make sure that the prime minister understands how important fully funding public schools is to the Australian community in the lead up to the next federal election,” she says.

This article was originally published in the Australian Educator, Summer 2024