Proposed changes to school funds could see them calculated using income of students’ parents

TAXPAYER funding for independent schools would be calculated using the income of students’ parents, under a radical proposed shake-up put to the Federal Government.

TAXPAYER funding for independent schools would be calculated using the income of students’ parents, under a radical proposed shake-up put to the Federal Government.

An independent review has recommended the model, which has drawn mixed responses from the affected groups, in a report to Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham.

The National School Resourcing Board’s Review of the socio-economic status score methodology recommends changes to one element of the funding formula, which allocates funding for non-government schools and systems.

Under the existing funding model, parents’ capacity to contribute towards their children’s schooling is calculated on the average socio-economic status (SES) score for the Census districts in which the students at the school reside.

But the proposed change, recommended by the report, is for the current socio-economic status (SES) to be calculated using parents’ incomes, in a way that won’t breach privacy or require schools to collect tax file numbers.

The funding model has been taken to Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham.

It also recommends the existing system continue in 2019 and any changes begin no earlier than 2020.

This would allow schools to prepare their response to the Federal Government before a final decision is made by Senator Birmingham later this year.

Catholic Education SA director Dr Neil McGoran said the report recognised the inequities with the present method and Catholic schools looked forward to a new approach of fair and equitable funding for non-government schools.

“We also understand that further work is needed to ensure a realistic funding model, which also takes into account privacy issues around parental income,’’ Dr McGoran said.

But Association of Independent Schools of South Australia chief executive Carolyn Grantskalns said any significant funding changes needed to be “rigorously tested”.

“Given that the current model was tested for more than three years before implementation, it is unwise to attempt to move to a very different system by 2020,’’ she said. “There are many unknowns arising from the recommendations.’’