Private Schools Overfunded

Almost half of all private schools in Australia are getting more money than they are entitled to, according to new research.

Further confirming the need for an overhaul of school funding, the research found huge variations in the funding that private schools received from the Federal Government.

As of January this year, only 52 per cent were getting the amount they were entitled to under the Socioeconomic Status  (SES) funding model, which was introduced in 2001.

The remaining 48 per cent were funded at various levels above their SES entitlement due to special deals, put in place by the Howard Government and maintained by Labor.

The research, Australian Government Funding for Schools Explained, was released last week by the parliamentary library in Canberra.

Both the Howard Government and the Labor Government have refused so far to tackle the funding disparities despite repeated warnings about the problem.

A confidential report produced by the last Coalition Government in 2006  raised the alarm saying the funding arrangements  “entrenched purely historical inequities” and “were not consistent with the Government’s objective of funding all schools on a consistent needs basis”.

Funding expert Dr Jim McMorrow has estimated that the overfunding of private schools is costing taxpayers $2.7 billion over four years.

The parliamentary library report sets out in detail the history of school funding by the Commonwealth and the SES funding arrangements under which private schools are funded.

Under those recurrent funding arrangements:

• Private schools receive between $1,300 and $7,000 per student a year. The money is paid regardless of the resources or income of the school.
• Public schools receive a fixed amount of around $1,000 per student. Again the money is paid regardless of the resources of the school or the actual needs of the students.

Help us get a fairer share of federal funding by adding your name to our petition or making a submission to the Federal Government’s funding review.

The report claims that the majority of funding for private schools is delivered by the Federal Government and the majority of funding for public schools is delivered by state and territory governments.

However, that has not always been the case.

In the 1970s when Commonwealth recurrent funding for schools was introduced the share that went to government schools was 70 per cent. Successive governments have cut the public school share well in advance of any shift in enrolments.

Dr McMorrow and Dr Lyndsay Connors found in their recent research that in the period between 1974 and 2007 the private school share of federal government funding increased by 40 per cent while at the same time enrolments changed by only 12 per cent.