Page 1699 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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school students enrolled in 6,750 government schools and 2,720 non-government schools to receive a simple, minimum schooling resource standard, topped up by loadings for children from disadvantaged or Indigenous backgrounds and for those who have a disability.
Under this new approach, students, not schools, would be at the centre of the new system. The report suggested that an amount of about $5 billion extra per year would be needed. Gonski went further and suggested that because nationally government schools had not been well funded by state governments, they should receive 75 per cent of the resource standard and that non-government schools should receive a public contribution of no less than 20 to 25 per cent.
I stress that was the proposal nationally because, as we know, circumstances in the ACT are different. The ACT government has funded government schools above the national average for some years and so it makes negotiation for a fair share of the cake on offer somewhat different.
Let me say at the start that I have no argument with the work that David Gonski and his committee have done but what we currently have does have its flaws. The report was never going to please everyone, and the committee knew that not everything they proposed could or would be adopted. But was it really necessary for the federal government to wait until nine months before the existing funding model expires, and four months before a federal election is due, to start to put something on the table? And why do we also learn, at one minute to midnight, that the federal government has decided that the only way it can fund its share is to slug universities?
For the ACT, that was a serious hit. We have several universities located here—the ANU, the University of Canberra, the Australian Catholic University and the University of New South Wales campus at ADFA. ANU’s Acting Vice-Chancellor was quick to point out that the cuts would hit front-line support services for his students and staff. That could mean less work for Canberra residents. Students are concerned that some lower enrolment courses could be dropped, reducing the range of quality education on offer and meaning fewer students studying and living here.
So the ACT faces a number of challenges. On offer, we believe, originally was a total of $100 million additional funding over the next six years, of which 65 per cent was to be paid for by the commonwealth. From there the debate, we assume, gets a little more complex and it is appropriate that given the appalling way that federal Labor is managing the process, the ACT is probably best served to wait.
But where does that leave ACT schools? We know the vast majority, if not all, of ACT schools are above the national resource standard. But it is also important that any agreement does not leave ACT schools worse off at the end of the six years. And that is clearly an unknown.
We have a further dilemma in the ACT, in that we have lower than national average funding for non-government schools. How does the funding get allocated? If we use the 75 to 25 government to non-government formula, we will see, over time, real disadvantage between the two sectors. ACT non-government schools want to feel
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