Public schools have long carried the heaviest load when it comes to educating Australia’s most disadvantaged kids. Now, two leading education experts say a once-in-a-generation funding commitment could finally give those schools the resources to change lives – if governments deliver on their promises.
In their new paper ‘What Fully Funded Public Schools Could Do’, University of Melbourne Professor Pasi Sahlberg and Save Our Schools (SOS) National Convenor, Trevor Cobbold, say the case for change is overwhelming.
“Educational, health and social inequalities are deeply entrenched and manifest across schools and communities nationwide,” they write, adding that the “disparities in academic achievement between students from the lowest and highest socio-economic quartiles are not only substantial but worsening.”
The problem, they argue, is structural – too many disadvantaged students are concentrated in under-resourced schools.
“Almost one-third of Australian public schools enrol student populations in which more than half are from the lowest socio-educational advantage quartile,” the paper notes. This creates what they call a “double jeopardy” effect, where both individual and concentrated disadvantage drag down achievement and wellbeing.
Professor Sahlberg and Cobbold back the Federal Government’s Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, which aims to lift all public schools to 100% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) — the funding benchmark first outlined in the 2011 Gonski Review.
But there’s a catch. “Apart from the ACT, public schools will not be fully funded by 2034,” they warn. Most of the promised money “is largely postponed until the last five years of the agreements.”
Still, the paper says the total increase – more than $20bn nationally – could make a big difference, as it would mean “about $7,700 per student over the ten years.” The key question, they say, is how this money should be used.
Professor Sahlberg and Cobbold identify four big priorities for investment: full-service schools, stronger family engagement, healthy school meals, and the elimination of school fees and so-called ‘voluntary contributions’.
They point to the success of models like Our Place at Doveton College in Victoria, which “has reduced developmental vulnerability, lifted early learning quality, and strengthened parental confidence.” Healthy school meals, they note, are another proven equaliser – “around 15 per cent of Australian students regularly arrive at school without food or money.”
On school fees, they are blunt.
“With nearly 4 per cent of public school income now derived from family payments, the principle of free public education is under threat.” Removing these costs, they argue, would “restore fairness in education and boost young people’s health and wellbeing by easing financial stress.”
Their message to Australia’s education policymakers is clear: funding reform can’t wait another decade. “Achieving a better and fairer education system in Australia is not merely a matter of aspiration, it is a pressing national imperative,” the paper concludes.
“The promise of equity must be realised not through rhetoric, but through bold, deliberate and sustained action.”