Private school funding like no other

New corflute signs, seen here at The Henry Lawson HS, promote the achievements of public schools.

by Angelo Gavrielatos

In no other country does the provision of government funding for private schools dominate the agenda of national government as it does in Australia.

Aimed at accelerating the flow of students from public schools to private schools, between 2005 and 2008 the Howard Government will hand about 75 per cent of federal government recurrent funding to private schools which enrol 32 per cent of students.

The Commonwealth now spends more on the roughly 13 per cent of students nationally in "independent" private schools than the almost 70 per cent of students in government schools.

The February 2007 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services reported that for every $1051 spent on students in public schools, the Howard Government chooses to provide $4515 for every student enrolled in a private school. That is 4.3 times as much.

Since the Howard Government was elected, the total share of federal funding to public schools has declined. (In 1996 public schools received 42 per cent of total school funding. It decreased to 35 per cent in 2006. If this decline is allowed to continue, public schools will only receive 31 per cent of federal schools funding by 2012.)

Were funding maintained at even the unacceptable 1996 levels, Australian public schools would be receiving around $1 billion more per year than they do now.

According to projections in this year's Federal Budget papers, we learn that funding for private schools will increase by $1.7 billion over the next five years to $7.5 billion, while the Federal Government's contributions for the nation's public schools will rise by $300 million to $3.4 billion in the same period. The 30 per cent increase over the next five years for private schools contrasts with a 10 per cent increase for public schools. This further illustrates that the increases in funding to private schools are ideologically driven, not enrolment driven.

With respect to additional schools money, both recurrent and capital, in the financial year 2007/08 the increases translate into $381 per private school student in comparison to $80 per public school student. To close this gap would require $677 million.

In 2003 the Schools Resource Taskforce (established by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs) calculated public schools required an additional $2.4 billion (which when indexed, now amounts to $2.9 billion) in recurrent funding to ensure the National Schools Resource Standard, necessary to achieve the National Goals of Schooling. Indeed, the $2.9 billion grossly underestimates the true level of funding required as the Schools Resource Taskforce has not yet calculated costs associated with capital, or specific costs associated with special education or with assuring quality teaching for all students.

Angelo Gavrielatos is the Deputy President.

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Last Modified: 26 Jul 2007