Victorian parents pay $711 per full-time student in government school fees
Dan Andrews has responded to calls for greater school funding as Victoria is revealed as the most expensive state for public education.
Education
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Cash-strapped Victorian parents are being forced to pay the most in Australia for their children’s education, as federal and state governments give our schools the second-lowest total of funds.
Victorian parents pay $711 per full-time student in government school fees, well above the national average of $488, analysis of federal education funding data from Deakin University researchers shows.
NSW parents only paid an average of $399 per state school child in 2019 – the most recent year for which figures are available.
Independent private school parents in Victoria also pay the highest fees per student – $15,135, well above the national average of $11,980 and higher than the $13,061 paid in NSW.
“Victorian families make the largest contributions to public education, while Victorian schools receive the second-lowest state and federal government funding across Australia,” said lead author Dr Katrina MacDonald of Deakin’s School of Education.
“Despite the enduring belief that public education is ‘free’, increasingly parents are expected to contribute payments to make up the shortfall from state education departments,” she said.
Victorian parents are increasingly being pressured to pay voluntary fees for government schools Many schools also don’t make it clear which fees are voluntary.
This financial burden borne by parents comes as Victorian students attract the second-lowest level of government funding per student in the nation.
In 2021, Victorian public schools received $20,047 per student in state and federal government funding, above only Queensland on $19,883. This is $893 per student less than the national average, and $1876 less than each NSW student receives.
Victorian non-government school students receive $12,087 per student per year, which is less than the government funds flowing to private school students in Queensland, Tasmania, WA and the Northern Territory.
Experts put this discrepancy down to Victoria having fewer remote areas compared to other states, as well as a much more decentralised education system.
Private schools are also increasing placing pressure on parents to pay school fees which run as high as $46,000.
Dr MacDonald and her co-authors concluded that the school funding model “has led to increased inequity, diminishing academic and social outcomes, and entrenched social stratification”.
Trevor Cobbold from Save Our Schools, a public education funding lobby group, said the study “provides comprehensive evidence of the failure of the funding system”.
“Private schools are over-funded because of billions provided outside the Gonski funding mode,” he said.
“Public schools are massively under-resourced because of funding failures by state governments. The chronic underfunding of public schools has to stop.”
Mr Cobbold said Victorian government schools were among the most underfunded in the country, on just 84 per cent of what they should get.
Premier Daniel Andrews, however, said no Victorian parent was obliged to pay fees at government schools.
“I’m not entirely certain about some of the data in that report,” he said on Thursday.
“We made a practice, and a very deliberate decision not that long ago to prevent schools from mandatory fees.
“The entire curriculum must be delivered free of charge.
“If parents choose to make a voluntary contribution because the school requests that, then that’s a matter between the school community and parent community.
“That is not a mandatory charge and no family should feel obliged to do that.”
A Department of Education spokesman said: “The federal government is committed to working with state and territory governments to get every school to 100 per cent of its fair funding level.”
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has also committed to raising all schools to 100 per cent of the school resource standard.
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