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Public Education is part of a great Australian tradition and success story.
Our public schools offer all Australians the opportunity to build a positive future for themselves, their families, their communities and our country. Free, secular, universally accessible public schools remain the key to a vibrant, socially cohesive and prosperous Australia.
Since coming to power in 1996, the Howard Government has systematically underfunded the public education system by increasingly shifting more of taxpayers money to private schools.
Against the advice of independent education experts, the Howard Government in 2001 introduced a complex new formula for funding for private schools; the SES model. This changed the basis for government funding of private schools from resources to one based on the estimated ability of the school community to pay.
“…the education system is consistently conferring privilege on those who already have it and denying it to those who do not.”
- Professor Barry McGaw, Director, Melbourne Education Research Institute, University of Melbourne; former Director of Education at the OECD.
Over the top of this model, the Howard Government also put in place a raft of special funding guarantees that exempted private schools from the SES funding model and protected them from any loss of funding. This resulted in over 50% of private schools being exempt from the SES funding model.
Overall, it has been estimated that private schools across Australia are receiving at least $2 billion more than their entitlements under the strict application of the SES funding model [Patty 2006d].
Despite claims from the Howard Government that this model of funding was fair, the outcomes of these new arrangements proved otherwise. The following graph shows how private schools have increased their funding under this formula at the expense of public schools.
This continual underfunding by the Howard Government has created a funding shortfall for public schools. The Schools Resource Taskforce (SRT), established by state and federal ministers, has calculated that public schools require an additional $2.9 billion per year to reach the national schools resource standard.
Indeed, the $2.9 billion dollars grossly underestimates the true level of funding required as the SRT has not yet calculated costs associated with capital, or specific costs associated with special education or with assuring quality teaching for all students.
More information
For more information about this issue please go to the NSW Teachers Federation’s Public Education campaign website or contact the NSW Teachers Federation.
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