School funding again up for debate

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This was published 8 years ago

School funding again up for debate

By Matthew Knott
Updated

Less than four years after David Gonski handed down his landmark review, the heated and complicated issue of how we fund our schools is again up for debate.

And not just that. So is the question of whether all parents - even if they are relatively rich - have a right to send their kids to public school for free. Barbecue stoppers don't come much better than that.

In case you've missed it, the Abbott government is conducting a major review into Australia's federal-state relations. It's a pet project of the Prime Minister, who focused on federation reform in his book Battlelines and whose department is running the review.

Later this year will come a white paper, but first a green paper designed to get people thinking big.

The heated and complicated issue of how we fund our schools is up again for debate.

The heated and complicated issue of how we fund our schools is up again for debate.Credit: Michelle Mossop

Certainly, no one could accuse the government of avoiding controversial ideas in its chapter on school education.

The paper, yet to be released publicly, says Australia has a "high quality, high equity" school system. But our results are slipping and more money isn't producing the improved results one would expect.

One reason for this could be the clunky relationship between states and the Commonwealth. Overlapping responsibilities, the paper argues, has led to "duplication, waste and poor targeting of investment and effort".

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So what's the solution?

The paper proposes four reform options. The first and the fourth are the most radical, the second and third the most realistic.

Option one would see the states and territories assume full responsibility for school funding and policy. This would include independent and Catholic schools, which the Commonwealth has helped fund since 1970. This would create clarity but someone would have to work out where the states would find an extra $15 billion a year to pay for it. Good luck with that one.

Option two would be to see the states and territories assume sole responsibility for funding public schools while the federal government would fund independent schools. This would end the current funding overlap and leave the states just $2 billion short a year. Yet it's still a retreat from Gonski's vision of a national needs-based, sector-blind funding model.

Option three is essentially the status quo, but with some Commonwealth responsibilities stripped back.

Certainly, no one could accuse the government of avoiding controversial ideas in its chapter on school education

Option four is perhaps the most controversial: handing over full funding school responsibility to the federal government. Funding would be determined, in part, on parents' ability to contribute to their child's education - not just student need. If the states wanted all parents to be able to send their children to a public school for free, they would have to cough up some cash too.

Let the debate begin.

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