Private schools getting more than $10bn in ‘special deals’, according to a new report.
The report, by economist Adam Rorris, details a long record of special deals, discretionary funds with minimal accountability and flaws in the design of JobKeeper which allowed private schools to keep the wage subsidies as profits.
According to the research, this includes $750m in JobKeeper payments to private schools which kept at least half as profit; $1.9bn for building improvements, while excluding public schools from any capital works funding and disaster support measures for private schools that were not extended to public schools.
“These decisions have come at a time when public schools across Australia are under-funded by approximately $6.5 billion each year,” Rorris said.
“Instead of fixing this shortfall, what we’ve seen is announcement after announcement that add up to more than $10 billion in extra funding for private schools above the 2017 baseline. Concerningly, much of this funding has been delivered through no-strings-attached special deals and discretionary funds with minimal accountability.”
The Australian Education Union (AEU) says public schools “cannot afford another three years of the Coalition Government”.
“Morrison must go. At the next federal election, we urge voters to put every school and every child first and change the government,” AEU federal president, Correna Haythorpe said.
Responding to the claims made in the report, a spokesperson for Acting Minister for Education Stuart Robert said the Federal Government is “doing its fair share of heavy lifting” when it comes to funding for government schools.
“We are meeting all of our commitments under the Australian Education Act 2013, and the Quality Schools Agreement with the States and Territories,” the spokesperson told The Educator.
“As confirmed in the 2022-23 Budget, and at Senate Estimates in April 2022, our Quality Schools investment is growing fastest for government schools at around 4.7% per student each year over the life of the agreement compared to per student growth of 3.8% for the non-government sector over the same period.”
The spokesperson said that under Australian Education Act 2013 and the Quality Schools Agreement [2018-2029] the Federal Government is the majority public funder for private schools while State and territory governments are the majority funder of public schools.
Independent Schools Australia CEO, Margery Evans, said private school students receive considerably less government funding than their counterparts in government schools.
"In 2019-20 total government spending on government schools averaged $20,182 per student compared with $11,620 per student in Independent schools - or 58 per cent of the average spent per student in government schools," Evans told The Educator.
"Over the past several decades non-government schools have been funded under different models which have applied different metrics to the calculation of the government funding a school will receive."
Evans said it is usual that with a change in funding model, transition arrangements are put in place to allow schools time to implement the necessary changes to school business practices and fee levels.
"What the AEU refers to as ‘over-funding’ is in fact transition support to ensure that all non-government schools can transition sustainably to the new funding model which has resulted in significantly reduced funding for some schools."