By Alex Crowe
Parents at some of Victoria’s best-resourced public schools are contributing thousands more in fees than families from poorer areas, highlighting concerns over inequity created by the voluntary fee system.
Families paid more than $2500 on average at the top 10 Victorian schools where payments were highest in 2023, compared with the state average of $592 per student.
Most schools that received the biggest contribution from parents were located in Melbourne’s inner east and south, while dozens of regional and outer metropolitan schools took in no revenue from parental fees.
The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority data includes all voluntary parental fees paid to schools for the provision of curriculum-related services and activities, as well as income from optional extracurricular activity, including excursions and camps. It also includes fees paid by international students, which are up to $20,000 at public schools.
Melbourne High School received more income from parents, $3627 per student on average, than any other Victorian public school, the data provided to The Age by the Greens shows.
The select-entry boys’ school in South Yarra, which counts billionaire Lindsay Fox among its alumni and donors, received almost $5 million in parental contributions in 2023, plus $1.7 million from other private sources – which includes donations, sponsorships and fundraisers.
Economist and public education advocate Trevor Cobbold said it was inevitable that schools serving more-advantaged communities would be better situated to raise voluntary contributions than those serving low-income families.
“The disparity in fundraising between advantaged and disadvantaged public schools highlights the need to fully fund public schools, particularly disadvantaged schools,” he said.
Cobbold, a former Productivity Commission economist who runs public education advocacy group Save Our Schools, said it raised the broader issue of what “free education” is, as a long-standing principle of public education.
“Our view is that anything that is required to deliver the curriculum in public schools should be free,” he said.
Cobbold said public schools in Victoria faced a severe shortage of funds and there was little wonder schools were forced to go to parents to help bridge the gap.
An Education Department spokesperson said all parental contributions at public schools were voluntary and every child “had the right to a world-class education in a Victorian government school”.
Federally, the Greens have announced a plan to abolish public school fees and provide families at government schools with an $800 back-to-school payment per child.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has costed the election promise at $2.4 billion over the forward estimates to end school fees, and $7.6 billion for the back-to-school payment.
Education spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne said the Greens were the only party with a plan to provide 100 per cent of the school resource funding – the estimated minimum requirement to meet students’ educational needs – this year.
“Australia already has one of the most unequal and segregated school systems in the OECD, and under proposed funding plans most public schools won’t receive even their minimum funding for another decade,” Allman-Payne said.
The federal government agreed to lift its share of NSW school funding this week – a similar deal to a $2.5 billion agreement with Victoria five weeks ago – leaving Queensland as the last remaining state without a pathway to full funding within a decade.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare would not be drawn on whether a re-elected Labor government would consider back-to-school payments or whether there was a plan to address the funding inequity created by voluntary fees.
Clare said the focus had been on working with states and territories to get all public schools on a path to full and fair funding.
“This is real funding tied to real reforms to help students catch up, keep up and finish school,” he said.
Deakin University associate professor in education Emma Rowe said reliance on private funding was a problem across the education system, including for non-government schools, where it was “off the charts”.
“It’s higher than other OECD countries in terms of relying on personal or family household funding and so that creeps into our public schools as well,” she said.
Rowe said she was not in favour of scrapping voluntary parental contributions as it would place more pressure on public schools.
“There’s already so many constraints and regulations put onto principals in terms of how they use their funding that it’s often not in their favour and often to their detriment,” she said.
State opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said school communities were increasingly reliant on locally raised funds to deliver the basics due to the Labor government’s repeated failure to meet its funding requirements.
“Fundraising within local schools should be encouraged, but these funds must not be used as a substitute for the Victorian government’s responsibility to fully fund our education system,” she said.
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