Call for funding reform gathers pace

THE states yesterday joined the chorus calling on Canberra to overhaul the school funding system

THE states yesterday joined the chorus calling on Canberra to overhaul the school funding system, with the NSW Coalition government saying it wanted to do a deal on the Gonski reforms this year.

As Queensland reiterated its support for the reforms in the Gonski review, the federal opposition described Canberra's plans as "a cruel hoax" akin to planning the family budget "around winning Powerball on a Thursday night".

As reported in The Australian yesterday, the federal government plans to release its blueprint to reform the school funding system next month with a view to introducing legislation in October or November.

The report by an independent panel headed by businessman David Gonski, released in February, says extra funding is required to enable all schools to educate students to a high standard, estimated by the panel at $5 billion a year based on 2009 figures. The commonwealth is still finalising the actual costs, but it is believed the estimate in 2013-14 dollars is $6.5bn.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne last night predicted the government would not implement $6.5bn worth of reforms.

"Planning education funding around that amount of money is like planning your household budget around winning Powerball (lottery)," Mr Pyne told ABC'S Q&A. "It is utterly unreasonable, it will not happen."

He added that the Coalition would not commit to spending $6.5bn a year to implement the Gonski reforms.

Fellow Q&A panellist Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the federal government would discuss Gonski spending at this week's Council of Australian Governments meeting.

Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said he expected Premier Campbell Newman to raise the Gonski reforms at COAG. He said the state supported the Gonski recommendations, but the issue was the amount Queensland would be expected to contribute, the latest figures suggesting it had risen from $700 million to $910m.

The NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, said the state remained supportive of the reforms and "we would like to do a deal this year". Regardless of the funding model introduced by the commonwealth, NSW was overhauling its funding system to a model following the same broad principles as the Gonski reforms, providing a base allocation for every school supplemented by loadings for different factors of disadvantage.

Under the NSW model, to be trialled in 229 schools from next term before being rolled out progressively across public schools by 2014, the base allocation includes loadings for the size of the school and the age of the buildings, the climate, to account for heating and cooling costs, as well as remoteness and isolation.

On top of the base allocation, schools get extra money for the number of students with low levels of disability and learning difficulties, the number and proportion of indigenous students, social disadvantage and those learning English.