Public schools are getting cash from charities – only to find it comes with a catch

Cash-strapped government schools are turning their backs on charitable funding over complaints the money too often comes with strings attached, new academic research has found.

Deakin University researchers were told that “onerous” conditions – including attending “coaching sessions” – and reporting requirements imposed on time-poor principals in return for grants of $20,000 or $30,000 meant they were simply not worthwhile.

Cash-strapped principals are turning their backs on charitable funding over complaints the money too often comes with “onerous” strings attached.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“I’ll never touch them again, no matter how desperate I am,” one principal told the researchers.

Efforts to establish charitable donations as a key plank of the public school funding architecture have had a mixed record since the notion was pushed by the landmark Gonski Review in 2011.

Schools Plus was granted tax-exempt status by the federal parliament in 2015 – allowing donors to claim the same tax breaks available to those making payments to private schools – in a bid to get charitable dollars flowing to thousands of needy public schools.

The not-for-profit founded by a group of eight not-for-profit organisations had raised $60 million by mid-last year – including a high-profile donation of $3 million from US tech giant Google – and said it had helped 358 schools around the country in the previous 12 months.

But Deakin school funding expert Emma Rowe and her Melbourne University colleague Elisa Di Gregorio found some principals were far from convinced that the Schools Plus model worked for them.

The academics surveyed more than 140 primary and secondary schools in Victoria and Queensland with principals reporting that the average amount of money brought into their schools through philanthropic sources was just $25,000 for primary schools and $38,000 for high schools.

Some of those who had won grants from Schools Plus said the cash came with a catch.

One principal told researchers that he had been awarded a $20,000 grant – on his third attempt – for a wellbeing program.

But in return for the money, he had to attend three coaching sessions, lasting three hours each.

Another principal said he would never ask Schools Plus for money again, describing the not-for-profit’s demands as “onerous” and “terrible”.

“I’ll never touch them again, no matter how desperate I am,” he told the researchers.

Schools Plus did not respond to requests for comment, but its latest impact report reported high levels of positive feedback about its coaching program, which used 27 coaches to deliver more than 100 hours of sessions in 2022-23.

The Deakin researchers noted that the need for principals to raise funds highlighted glaring problems with the financing of public education.

But the federal government and most of the states remain deadlocked over a $16 billion, 10-year funding deal, with the September 30 deadline fast approaching.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare indicated again this week that he had no intention of improving the most-recent pitch he had made to the states. He has offered to lift the federal share of public school funding from 20 per cent to 22.5 per cent of the Schools Resourcing Standard.

But Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll – who is demanding 25 per cent funding from Canberra – said on Wednesday that Clare’s offer was still unacceptable.

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