Greens Call for Cuts to Private School Funding Following Report on Public Education

This photo shows a student arriving at a public school in Sydney, Australia, on June 17, 2013. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

The Australian Green Party has called on the federal government to slash funding for private schools and use that money to invest in the public education sector to improve the country’s falling high school completion rates.

This comes as the Australia Institute, a left-leaning think tank, has released a report (pdf) on the benefits of investing in public education, which found that government funding for the public education sector fell short of $6.6 billion (US$4.24 billion) each year to meet the minimum standards (Schooling Resource Standard).

The Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), introduced in a review commissioned by former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard in 2011, is an estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet the educational needs of a single student.

As of 2023, SRS funding amounts are $13,048 for primary students and $16,397 for secondary students.

The report argued that the decline in high school completion rates, which plunged by 6.3 percent from 2017 to 2022, could be fixed with an additional $6.6 billion investment every year–equivalent to a 15 percent increase in total annual public school funding.

It also said that the enhanced high school completion rates resulting from increased funding would lead to a $17.8 billion gain in employment, economic activity and productivity, as well as $24.7 billion worth of social savings after two decades.

Senator Penny Allman-Pay, the Greens spokesperson on Schools, said the lack of funding was primarily responsible for the drop in student performance and school retention.

“Before we start tinkering with teacher training and methodologies, let’s make sure that there are enough teachers in schools and enough resources and support for them to deliver a good education for our kids,” she said in a statement.

“There’s only one thing that will fix that: money. Right now, public schools don’t have enough, while private schools have too much. It’s as simple as that.”

Cut Funding to Private Schools, Say Greens

The senator also said cutting funding for the “overfunded private system” was a reasonable solution that the government could implement.

The Greens mentioned that private schools received $18.6 billion in combined funding from federal and state governments in 2021.

“$6.6 billion is only a third of what our governments spend on fee-charging private schools every year,” Ms. Allman-Pay said.

“And it’s not like that’s doing anything to keep those fees down. Fees in some private schools have risen 80 percent in the past decade.”

Data from the Department of Education showed that the federal government spent around $27.3 billion on school funding in 2023, among which $10.6 billion was allocated to public schools, $9.3 billion to Catholic schools and the remaining $7.4 billion to independent schools.

The State of Public Education in Australia

According to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, over 2.6 million students were enrolled in public schools in 2022, accounting for 64.5 percent of the total number of students.

Among the public pupils, over 1.5 million enrolled in primary schools, while the remaining 1.1 million were high school students.

The report revealed that Australian public schools had the lowest retention rate for year 10-12 students (77.2 percent), compared to Catholic (85.4 percent) and independent and private schools (90.8 percent).

In addition, it found that students from disadvantaged socio-economic, regional and Indigenous backgrounds were among those who suffered most from the drop in high school retention.

Students are seen in class at Melba Secondary College in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 12, 2020. Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Recently, the ACARA reported that one-third of the 1.3 million Australian students who sat the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) exam failed to meet its new benchmarks in literacy and numeracy.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said that the government was working to close the education gap between regional and city schools as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

“If you’re a child from a poor family or from the bush or if you’re an Indigenous child, you’re less likely to go to preschool, you’re more likely to fall behind at primary school, you’re more likely to drop out in high school,” he said in comments obtained by AAP.

“We need to work with the states and territories to fix that (gap).”

However, he noted that school funding needed to be linked to education outcomes and used to help children who fell behind at school.

Opposition Says Funding Is Not The Real Problem

Meanwhile, Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson reiterated the opposition’s stance that the fall in the quality and performance of Australia’s education system was due to the inquiry-based or loose learning method currently adopted by schools.

She also said that there was a need to mandate explicit instruction, the teaching of phonics and other evidence-based teaching and learning practices in classrooms nationwide.

“This is not about school funding per se,” she said in a social media post, noting that the Coalition used to double federal school funding when it was in government.

“Too many teachers and students across our country are being let down by teaching methods that do not work.

“That’s principally why we are seeing such a serious decline in school standards.”