A push to fully fund public schools across Australia within five years will be launched as a report lays bare the impacts of funding gaps on students and teachers.
The Australian Education Union hopes it’s national For Every Child campaign will help secure the money for public schools by 2028.
This would allow schools to reduce class sizes, increase one-on-one support for students and provide classroom assistance to teachers.
The union said 98 per cent of Australian public schools were funded below the schooling resource standard.
The standard, agreed to by federal and state governments a decade ago, is the minimum amount of money schools need to meet students’ needs.
AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe said students and teachers were giving 100 per cent, and politicians should do the same.
“Funding public schools at 100 per cent of the standard is the only way to ensure every child gets every opportunity to succeed and we have the teachers we need for the future,” she said.
“The needs of our children are growing, but the funding from governments hasn’t kept up.”
The campaign includes results from a national survey of 7808 teachers, principals and support staff.
It revealed 90 percent of principals had teacher shortages in the past year, almost double the number who faced the problem three years ago.
More than 70 percent of principals said there had been a decline in student well-being during the past year.
Two-thirds of teachers said their workload had increased in the past 12 months, and less than one in five said they were committed to teaching until retirement.
The union is calling on the federal government to take the lead in upcoming negotiations with state and territory leaders on school funding.
It also wants the Commonwealth contribution to increase from 20 percent to a minimum of 25 percent for all states and 40 percent for the Northern Territory.
