Gonski pay to hit $60,000 per child

SCHOOLS in remote communities will receive the biggest increases in funding per student under the Gonski reforms.

SCHOOLS in remote communities will receive the biggest increases in funding per student under the Gonski reforms, giving some schools more than $60,000 for every child each year.

Estimates by the federal Education Department show small schools in very remote communities in the Northern Territory will receive the biggest funding rises under the new model - more than $20,000 extra each year per student by 2019 in some cases.

The department's modelling shows some small schools in country towns will receive larger percentage increases - up to 70 per cent and even 100 per cent in a few cases - but the dollar amount per student is less than for small remote Territory schools.

Julia Gillard's efforts to convince the states to sign up to the Gonski school funding reforms by the deadline of June 30 have been hampered by the commonwealth's inability to detail exactly how much each school would receive under the new model.

The Northern Territory example is based on a real, unidentified school of fewer than 15 students. At present it receives about $445,000 a year in total funding from federal and territory governments, but this will rise under the new model by almost 67 per cent or $300,000 a year in 2019.

On a per student basis the school's funding rises by 55 per cent, from $40,183 a student this year to $62,384 for each student in 2019. The funding comprises base payments of $9271 for every primary student and $12,193 for every secondary student, which are the common base amounts for all students.

About 80 per cent of the school's increased funding comes from supplementary payments, or loadings, designed to provide extra resources to schools based on the educational needs of their individual students.

Being a very remote school, it will receive about $334,000 from the location loading in 2019 and a further $175,000 as a loading for its small size. Every student will attract the indigenous loading, worth about $186,000 in 2019, and all students will qualify for the loading for low-socioeconomic status, worth $52,000. It has one student with a disability, which gives the school an extra $23,000 from the disability loading.

Schools will have the flexibility to spend the extra money on the needs of students as they see fit, such as hiring specialist teachers in literacy or starting a breakfast club to feed students before school.

But the federal government does require some common measures to be implemented in all schools, including a reading blitz in the first four years of school, developing and reporting on a school improvement plan, and reducing the workload for beginning teachers to allow better support and mentoring.

The estimate presumes the Northern Territory government will sign up to the two-for-one deal offered by the federal government, and contribute an extra $105 million over six years to receive an extra $195m from the commonwealth. The calculation of extra funding is for 2019, and the amount it receives next year will depend on whether the territory decides to adopt the new model and how quickly it will increase its schools budget.

But the federal government's investment is small in the first few years of the new model, with the majority of new money not flowing through until the final years of the six-year transition period.

The government says this is a virtue, to gradually increase the extra funding, giving schools time to plan how to best use the extra resources, but it has been criticised for the long delay, which puts the final implementation of the model after at least two federal elections.

In other estimates based on real schools provided by the federal Education Department, a low-fee independent prep-to-Year 12 school in regional Queensland with about 400 students will receive almost $25m in extra funding over the next six years, if the state government signs up to the plan. About two-thirds of the increased funding will come from loadings for the disadvantages faced by its students. A majority of students are indigenous and about 76 per cent are in the bottom quarter for socio-economic status, giving the school extra funding in indigenous and SES loadings.

The school will receive a size loading of $212,272 and a loading for its location worth 13 per cent of its base funding, with a funding increase next year of 15 per cent.

A Victorian government primary school in a disadvantaged area of Melbourne with about 590 students will receive an extra $10m over the next six years under the new system.

About 78 per cent of its students are from low-income families who struggle to find ongoing full-time work and rely on government support, 28 per cent speak English as a second language and 25 per cent of its students have a disability.

The school will receive $9271 for every student next year plus loadings, increasing its funding next year by about 10 per cent and by about 20 per cent by 2019. About 34 per cent of the extra funding comes from the loadings to meet the needs of students.