SOS Statement to Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee

The following is a statement presented to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee public hearing on the Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Bill .

Thank you for this opportunity to address the Committee.

Save Our Schools considers that the Amendment Bill will not meet its stated goal of providing “a pathway to full and fair funding for all schools” because it fails to remove major obstacles in the pathway to full and fair funding of r public schools.

First, the floor of 20% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) of public schools is not commensurate with nationally agreed education goals and the crucial role of education in supporting national social and economic objectives. The floor should be higher.

Second, the Bill fails to remove blockages to full funding contained in the current funding agreements by which the states can claim non-SRS funding items as part of their share of funding public schools. These claims are regarded as “accounting tricks”.

Inclusion of non-SRS items such as depreciation, school transport and funding for regulatory agencies as part of the state/territory shares of funding public schools has defrauded them of about $13.1 billion over 2019-2024 and will continue to do so unless proscribed.

SOS proposes two main amendments to the Act to remove these obstacles:

1. Replace the 20 % floor for public schools with a 25% floor.
   
   
2. Require that only funding items included in the measure of the SRS can be claimed as part of the state/territory shares of the SRS of public schools.

Please note our concern that planned increases in the Commonwealth share could be delayed by changes to the Regulation that cannot be disallowed by the Parliament.

We also recommend rejection of the proposal some submissions to replace the 80% cap on Commonwealth funding of private schools with a floor of 80%.

This proposal fails to acknowledge the contrasting funding context of public and private schools.

Public schools are massively under-funded in all states and territories except the ACT and they will never be fully funded while the accounting tricks remain in funding agreements. Replacing the cap with a 25% floor would permit the Commonwealth to help bridge the funding gap.

By contrast, private schools are over-funded in all states and territories except the Northern Territory. They will remain so until at least 2029. Replacing their 80% cap with a floor of 80% would allow a future government to lock-in the over-funding or even increase the Commonwealth share, thus widening the huge resource gap between private and public schools.

Finally, our recommendations provide a balanced solution to the stand-off between the Government and some states over the future funding of public schools. The Commonwealth increases its funding share to 25% and the sates commit to 75% without the accounting tricks.

Thank you.