The research by funding experts, Lyndsay Connors and Jim McMorrow, found that school funding in its current state was “politically, financially and educationally unsustainable”.
The report follows last week’s furore around the Federal Government’s Green Paper, which floated the option of cutting all funding to public schools. The Prime Minister and Federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, quickly ruled out the idea.
However, the report by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) shows that public schools are in danger of being driven into a greater state of inequity and disadvantage, with the vast majority of Government funds flowing to private schools.
“Abandoning progress towards the level and distribution of funding recommended by the Gonski Report would be to preserve the status quo, which as the Gonski Report showed, operates at the expense of many of those students currently undertaking their schooling in the government school sector,” stated the report.
The Abbott Government’s post-2017 funding plan will see Federal funding for private schools increase by $2.8bn by 2019 – nearly double the increase of $1.5bn for public schools.
In a statement released yesterday, the Australian Education Union (AEU) federal president, Correna Haythorpe, slammed the Government for neglecting students’ need for a “decent education” in the public sector.
“This analysis shows that the Abbott Government has no interest in properly funding schools so all students can receive a decent education,” Haythorpe said, adding that the Government must “deliver funding based on need, not political ideology”.