The claims by the Prime Minister, the Queensland Premier and their education ministers that Queensland public schools will be fully funded by 2034 are a blatant falsehood. The new school funding agreement between the Commonwealth and the Queensland Government will not set public schools are not on the path to full funding as government media releases say.
Despite a substantial and very welcome boost in funding, Queensland public schools will remain underfunded in 2034, 23 years after the Gonski Report recommended full funding. Public schools will remain massively underfunded in every year until 2034. It is a shameful neglect of the challenges facing public schools and the learning needs of disadvantaged students, the large majority of whom attend public schools.
In 2034, Queensland public schools will be funded at 97.6% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) instead of 100%. Public schools will be underfunded by $425 million in 2034. Underfunding will be over $1.6 billion a year in 2025 and 2026 and remain over $1 billion each year until 2032. The cumulative underfunding over the ten years is estimated at $12.5 billion. Public schools also suffered massive losses also under the previous Morrison era agreement.
There are several reasons for the continuing underfunding.
First, the Commonwealth increase in its share of funding Queensland public schools from 20% to 25% is only gradually phased in and is heavily backloaded to the last five years. It will only increase by an 0.5 percentage point in the first five years. The increase over the first five years is estimated at $0.53 billion and $1.33 billion in the last five years.
Second, the agreement requires the Queensland Government to remove the special allowance to claim capital depreciation up to 4% of the SRS as part of its share of funding public schools by 2034. This allowance was included in the previous Morrison era agreement and defrauds public schools of funding because it is excluded from how the SRS is calculated. However, its scheduled removal is largely left to the last five years. The allowance will remain at 4% until 2029 and then gradually removed to 2034. The cumulative loss of funding from this accounting trick will amount to $4.6 billion.
Third, the Queensland Government is allowed to claim other non-SRS expenditure as part of its share of funding public schools. It can continue to claim expenditure on the Curriculum and Assessment Authority and it can now separately claim expenditure on school transport for public school students which was previously included as part of the 4% allowance. It can claim up to1.8% of the SRS for school transport which the agreement admits is a “non-standard inclusion”. This is a remarkable admission by governments that these allowances defraud public schools of eligible SRS funding.
The funding loss for public schools from all these non-SRS allowances will increase from $596 million in 2024 to $662 million in 2032 before reducing to $425 million in 2034. The cumulative loss of funding over the ten years is estimated at $6.1 billion.
The Queensland agreement discriminates against public schools by allowing the Queensland Government to claim non-SRS expenditures as part of its share of funding public schools but not for its share of funding private schools. Private schools are also subject to regulation and private school students are eligible for school transport subsidies. Discriminatory defrauding public schools provides another resource advantage for private schools.
The agreement must be revised to give public schools a better and fairer deal. The Commonwealth should accelerate the increase in its funding share of the SRS public schools to achieve 25% by 2029. The Queensland Government should remove the 4% allowance by 2029 and immediately remove new non-SRS expenditure claims as part of public school funding.