Research Papers
2026
The Building Divide in Australian Schools: How Capital Funding Fuels Educational Inequity
This report uses government data, documents obtained through FOI and a national survey of public schools’ leaders to identify a huge and increasing gap between school sectors in terms of investment in buildings and infrastructure, and shows how the Commonwealth’s long term neglect of public schools has increased the school infrastructure gap over decades.
2025
Investing in Australia's Future 2025
This booklet updates the 2023 publication and makes recommendations on how new national school funding deals can achieve sustained progress for educational equity in Australian schools. It is grounded in the evidence provided by our members working in 6700 public schools across Australia.
2024
Their Future - Made in Australia
This report presents the shared experiences of teachers,
principals, support staff, parents, and community members and highlights the
dedicated professionals educating and supporting Australia’s children in
increasingly difficult conditions.
A decade of inequity: How Australian governments have funded private schools above public schools since 2013
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.
Ending the capital funding divide in Australias schools
This report details how for over a decade the Commonwealth government has been derelict in its duty to ensure that students in Australia’s public schools have access to the buildings, and equipment and learning environments they need to thrive
2023
Investing in Australia's Future
This booklet shows how closing the resources gap is an
essential part of closing the achievement gaps between children from different
backgrounds and makes recommendations across eight key areas to ensure that
equity sits alongside excellence as the twin ambitions for our nation’s public
schooling system.
Making our words and actions meet Understanding the experiences of Indigenous educators in the workforce
Yalukit Yulendj, the AEU’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Committee, committed to a survey of Indigenous educators and their experiences of work.
How school funding fails Public Schools : how to change for the better by Adam Rorris
This study looks at the extent to which current school funding agreements can deliver on the needs of all students in Australian schools.
The Australian school teaching workforce: a report based on 2021 ABS census data, prepared for the Australian Education Union by Barbara Preston
Data from the ABS Census can illuminate many aspects of the school teaching workforce that are obscure in the common collections of administrative data. The data and analyses in this report highlight a number of issues that are important for policy in areas such as teachers’ conditions and salaries, workforce planning, and school funding.
2022
Scott Morrison’s record on school funding: $6.5 billion every year in public school neglect & $10 billion in private school cash handouts by Adam Rorris
This report details thirteen critically unfair decisions in respect to school funding that the LNP government (with Scott Morrison as either Treasurer or PM) has made since 2015.
