Schools who need Gonski funding most will miss out on crucial resources if government winds back promise

Schools who rely heavily on Gonski funding to support their students, many of them migrants with low socio-economic standing, will miss out on support if government backs out of the Gonski promise early

Peter Rouse, principal of Canley Vale High School with Beth Godwin, principal of Cabramatta High School.

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Abandoning Gonski funding two years early would mean missing the chance to lift some of Australia’s poorest communities out of economic hardship.

That’s the message from Cabramatta and Canley Vale high school principals Beth Godwin and Peter Rouse.

Both schools rely heavily on Gonski funding to support their students, many of them migrants with low socio-economic standing.

“Gonski is about securing generational change for our community,” Mr Rouse said, responding to reports that Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham intends to wind back funding for the final two years of the Gonski deal.

Canley Vale High School has received $5 million since 2014.

“As many as 97 per cent of Year 9s at our school are above the minimum standard of literacy and numeracy,” he said.

“And 96 per cent of my students come from non-English speaking backgrounds.

“To have a result this good is unheard of, even in schools that don’t have such a high level of English as a second language.”

Ms Godwin said Gonski funding meant so much to a disadvantaged community.

“Investment in education is an investment in your country,” she said.

She said Gonski funding opened up a range of possibilities for Cabramatta High School such as access to speech pathologists, homework centres with tuition, parent English classes and more.

“They’re trying to find their way in a new country. They don’t have the extra money to provide things other Australians in more established areas take as their right, like tutoring and sport,” Ms Godwin said.

These programs deliver better outcomes for the students, which means better futures for them and less reliance on welfare.

“You’re never going to get a level playing field but Gonski funding went a long way towards that.

“We’ve really begun to see the potential of what these schools can do.”

Since 2009, Cabramatta High School’s numeracy scores jumped from minus 10 to plus 4.9, an increase Ms Godwin said was largely due to Gonski funding.

“With funding you get the time. It’s a great gift,” she said.

“It’s been four years since Gonski funding started – not even a generation through school and already we’re seeing great results.”

NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli argued against cutting Gonski funding last week, saying a national system of school funding that was within reach was now in danger.

“What’s been put to us (on Friday) just raises more questions than it resolves,” he said.

“This is really a lost opportunity and I think we’re back to the bad old days where we’re going to be fighting regularly over school funding and that’s always going to come at the expense of students.”

The NSW Edication Minister said in 2016, public schools in the Fairfield electorate had received $23.9 million in Resource Allocation Model [RAM] funding for the eight loadings. This was an increase of $2.4 million on their 2015 needs-based allocations.

“Last week I visited Canley Vale High School where they are employing nine extra literacy specialists, at a cost of $600,000, to target literacy in Years 7,8, and 9,” the minister said.

Mr Piccoli said the extra funding was delivering outstanding results, in 2015 when 97 per cent of Year 9 students achieved at or above the National Minimum Standard across literacy and numeracy; retention rates at the school, from Year 10 to HSC, had increased over five years from 81.4 per cent to 93 per cent; and 52 per cent of students achieved at least two Band 5-6 results in the HSC.

“Without fully funding the Gonski Agreement, schools like Canley Vale High will receive less funds than they otherwise would have.”