The architect of landmark Gonski school funding reforms has called on governments to fully finance his review a decade after it was launched and says he regrets not recommending that the money be distributed directly to schools.
Businessman David Gonski said he was disappointed that many schools were not receiving all the needs-based per-student funding that his report had intended.
David Gonski has called on his reforms to be fully funded. Credit: Kate Geraghty
Speaking at an education forum at the Opera House on Thursday night, Mr Gonski said 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), considered the minimum money required to educate students adequately, should be funded.
“If the government can’t afford it and has to find other sources, it’s up to them how they do that,” he said.
“If they have to slow down other schools, that’s up to them, not to me.”
He added: “I would really like to see the funding done properly.”
Ten years after the Gonski Review Report was made public, some experts say the ambitious reform package has failed amid falling educational outcomes.
But Mr Gonski stood by his report and said public schools in NSW were currently only receiving about 88 per cent of the SRS. Of all Australian jurisdictions, only ACT public schools were receiving more than 90 per cent.
The SRS is a base amount of funding for each student, with loadings for different types of disadvantage, such as disability or Indigenous heritage. The states’ share of public school funding is 80 per cent while the federal government is responsible for the remaining 20 per cent.
“As a business person, as a human being, not only do I believe that your destiny should not be determined by your demography, but I also believe that we have an obligation to maximise human capital,” Mr Gonski said.
The Gonski reforms have come under criticism for handing out student funding directly to school systems – state and Catholic – instead of to individual schools. The systems can distribute the money as they see fit.
Mr Gonski conceded it was a mistake to support this method of funding distribution.
“I was one of the people that was convinced that we should pay this money to systems,” he said.
“But I think we should be true to our formula, which was to trace it through to every single student in every single school.”
Mr Gonski said he also regretted recommending an annual government funding increase of 15 per cent, or $5 billion.
“I should never have put that in the report,” he said.
“To those who felt they had to pay it, it was too much. And for those who wanted to fund the schools, it was too little.
“Everybody debated the $5 billion, rather than the neat phrase, needs-based funding.”
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the state had led the charge on needs-based funding, being the first jurisdiction to sign up to the original Gonski agreement.
“We continued this support, signing the new agreement in 2018 and were the only state to provide additional funding to public schools; a further investment of $712 million,” she said.
“Funding is important, but how schools use that funding effectively is critical.”
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said without full funding of the SRS there could be no level playing field.
“The Schooling Resource Standard gave us the mechanism ... to give every child the opportunity to achieve,” he told the forum.
“But 10 years later, our schools are only at 88 per cent of that minimum level of funding. That means, effectively, one in eight kids are not being funded.”
A spokesman for acting Education Minister Stuart Robert said the federal government’s funding for state schools was forecast to grow by 100 per cent between 2018 and 2029.
He said a Productivity Commission report showed federal investment in schooling had grown faster for both government and non-government schools compared with the states and territories.
“Commonwealth funding for government schools increased by 64.1 per cent per student in real terms over the past 10 years compared with 49.8 per cent in non-government schools,” he said.
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