Federal Government cuts real funding for public schools

By Sally Edsall

Federal funding allocations for public and private schools, announced by Prime Minister John Howard on March 11, amount to a real cut in funding to public schools.

Public schools will receive less than the indexed amount they should be entitled to based on cost increases.

The cut is achieved by the Federal Government discounting the amount public schools should receive through indexation, based on a forecast that the increase in enrolments in public schools will be relatively smaller than increases in enrolments at private schools.

Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson said in his press release (March 11): "The increase in enrolments in non-government schools is expected to be significantly higher than the increase in government school enrolments over the next four years." [our emphases]

According to the Minister's statement there will be an actual increase in enrolments and instead of a 28 per cent cost based increase, it will be 27 per cent for public schools. This is reminiscent of the discredited Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment which the Howard Government introduced after its election in 1996.

According to Dr Nelson's figures, between 2001-04, public schools received 28.5 percent of the Federal Government's recurrent funding for schools. In 2005-08 it will receive 26 per cent.

Funding is based on a measurement called Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC).

This is what the Government says is the average cost of educating a student in a public school, but not what schools actually receive.

The real deceit of the Government's claims about funding is that they claim to be funding according to student need, when in fact it is based on this measurement. As more students enrol in private schools, the average cost of educating a student in public schools increases, as a larger proportion of those public school students are those with disabilities, located in remote areas, and of lower socio-economic background. This increases average government school costs which then result in huge increases to private schools beyond the indexed increases. Private schools have a small minority of the more expensive-to-educate students.

While private schools are receiving increases above the indexed rises in AGSRC, public schools are having their amounts cut because of their supposed less rapid increase in enrolments.

Catholic schools deal

Four years ago the Catholic education system did a deal which delivered large funding increases. Catholic schools remained outside the socio-economic status (SES) funding scheme applying to some other private schools. Catholic systemic schools have now been brought into the SES model, resulting in another massive increase. It is, however, only 40 per cent of Catholic schools which will be SES funded. The 60 percent which would have been worse off have been added to the other private schools which under SES would be deemed to be worse off. They are called "funding maintained" and have their funding guaranteed at the higher levels they attracted under the old funding scheme. There are never any losers when it comes to private school funding!

Politicians from both major political parties like to talk about "poor Catholic schools", or "needy parish schools" or even "poor private schools". This myth must be debunked. If there are any "poor Catholic schools" that is entirely the decision of the Catholic Education Office which allocates the money its schools attract.

All Catholic systemic schools attract the maximum level of funding from both federal and state governments. The Catholics tell us themselves that this accounts for about 85 per cent of their overall funding.

We also know that all Catholic systemic schools are operating at or above AGSRC levels. The gulf between systemic schools system operating at or above AGSRC and public schools operating below is clear. This also applies to the other low-fee private schools.

They are only poor based on this funding average, an average which does not actually represent the amount spent in most public schools.

Catholic systemic schools like St Leo's Wahroonga, St Joseph's Gosford, or Mater Maria Warriewood which charge fees of $3000 a year operate well above AGSRC levels when their private resources are added to funding from both state and federal governments.

The "poor private schools" rhetoric is a deceit designed to sell to the public this funding obscenity which continues to ensure that the available-to-all public school system slips further behind in federal government funding. As long as the private schools receive automatic increases in funding from both state and federal governments whenever average costs increase, then public schools can never hope to close the resource gap. When government policy ensures private schools receive increases which widen the gap, then it is apparent that the real need is located within the public schools.

Federation is campaigning to ensure that the schools funding policies of the Howard Government are stopped.

Sally Edsall is a Research Officer.

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