An extraordinary event occurred on the Parliament House lawns on Wednesday 21 August 2024. Education Ministers from NSW, SA, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT joined AEU leaders in calling for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to keep his election promise to fully fund public schools.
In 2012, the Review of School Funding chaired by David Gonski, AO, recommended the introduction of a needs-based, sector blind funding system for education in Australia to ensure that every child regardless of their background or circumstances would receive a high quality education. The needs-based funding system agreed to by the Commonwealth and state and territory governments uses a resource standard called the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) to determine how much money a school or school system needs to meet the minimum needs of its students.
More than a decade later, only the ACT has delivered the minimum SRS to public schools. That’s only 1.3% of all public schools in the country. At the same time 98% of private schools have been funded by the government at or above the SRS.
The AEU has been campaigning for over a decade for fair funding of public schools. Currently the Commonwealth government contributes 20% to the SRS share for public schools. Only the ACT government contributes the full 80% to reach 100% of the SRS. The contributions from other states and the NT leave those jurisdictions woefully behind the agreed SRS. (The NT is only funded at 76% of the SRS; SA and WA receive 91% of the SRS and other states falling in between.) With significantly greater revenue raising potential, the AEU is campaigning for the Commonwealth to increase its SRS share from 20% to 25%. The Commonwealth government has offered a 2.5% funding increase. The current negotiations between the Commonwealth and state/territory governments are at a stalemate. The Albanese government has announced a “take it or leave it” offer.
While the ACT is fully funded, we do not want to be disadvantaged for doing the right thing. That’s why the ACT is also seeking an increased contribution from the Commonwealth government.
ACT delegates, including Tessa and Emily from Canberra College, joined Education Ministers, AEU members, parents and other senior school students for a day in parliament lobbying politicians for a 25% Commonwealth contribution to the SRS.