New official data shows that inequitable school funding is leaving public schools behind and highlights the importance of bipartisan support of full funding for public schools.
To coincide with its Annual Federal Conference in Melbourne, the Australian Education Union (AEU) is today releasing data from the ACARA 2023 School Finance dataset that highlights the disparity between public and private school funding.
Despite substantially greater student need in public schools, nationally private schools receive 27% more recurrent income from all sources per student.
AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said that the data clearly showed how inequitable the distribution of funding is and shows the urgency in achieving full funding.
The Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) is the funding benchmark that all governments have agreed to, as the minimum amount required to educate students, however only 1.3% of schools in Australia are currently at that benchmark.
Key findings of the ACARA data include:
• Total recurrent income per student is now 27% higher in private schools than public schools.
• Public schools have a higher proportion of students with additional needs, including more than twice the proportion of students from the lowest quartile of socio-educational advantage.
• The capital expenditure gap is increasing, with private schools spending $5.4 billion more on school infrastructure than public schools in 2023 when student numbers are considered.
• Capital expenditure in private schools is now 2.1 times that of public schools, up from 1.5 times in 2021.
"Public schools educate the vast majority of Australian students, including more students who face educational disadvantage, yet they are significantly underfunded,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“This shortfall in funding to public schools means they are denied the vital resources that they need to deliver high quality teaching and learning programs.”
“Public schools are lagging behind both in recurrent income per student and in money spent on school infrastructure, creating deep inequity and a two-tiered system.”
“That is why is it so important that the Albanese Government has committed to increasing the commonwealth share of the SRS to a minimum of 25% and why state governments must put in a full 75% so that all public schools are funded to 100% of the SRS.”
“To address entrenched funding inequity the current negotiations must lock in public school funding deals with all states and territories that finally deliver a true 100% of the SRS without accounting tricks or loopholes.”
We also need a bipartisan commitment to increase capital funding for public schools. Currently private schools are due to get $1 billion from the Commonwealth over the next 4 years while public schools will get nothing.
“With an imminent federal election, there must be bi-partisan support for full funding of public schools,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“The Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has so far refused to commit to full funding of public schools and matching the current Government’s commitment to lift the Commonwealth’s share to a minimum 25% of the SRS.”
“We call on Peter Dutton to give an iron clad guarantee that he will honour all public school funding agreements in full should he become Prime Minister in any future election.”
MEDIA CONTACT: Kylie Jensen – 0402 298 728
21 February 2025