Private school backs education funds shake-up

THE head of Sydney's exclusive St Andrew's Cathedral School has welcomed a major shake-up of education funding

THE head of Sydney's exclusive St Andrew's Cathedral School has welcomed a major shake-up of education funding that would mean schools received a standard payment per student across the public and private sectors.

John Collier, who also heads the NSW and ACT branch of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools, said such an approach would deliver a more equitable share of funding to students across the nation.

However, Dr Collier said he could give only "cautious support" at this stage as he still needed to examine the detail of the report, to be released next Monday.

As revealed yesterday, The Australian understands the Gonski review will recommend schools receive a standard payment per student, called a school resource standard.

Dr Collier, one of very few Australians who has been the principal of a government, religious and large independent school, said even schools that faced reduced funding were unlikely to oppose the model because there was a sense the changes were inevitable.

"The only concern is that it's not done in an immediate, single step -- which is very difficult to cope with in a budgetary sense -- but that schools are given notice and can work towards it," Dr Collier said.

The federal government provides the bulk of funding for non-government schools while the state and territory governments provide most of the money for public schools. Since 2001, the federal government has funded private schools based on students' socioeconomic status.

However, half the non-government schools are exempt and funded at a higher level. They have their funding maintained in real terms at the same rate they received before the Howard government's SES model.

The Gonski review model would remove this anomaly.

Private schools with maintained funding and high-performing public schools in affluent areas stand to lose funding under the proposed model. Many of those would be Catholic schools.

National Catholic Education Commission chairwoman Therese Temby said the concept of a standard payment per student had existed in the Whitlam era.

She said until details were released of the proposal it was difficult to determine whether Catholic schools would support it.

Independent Education Union federal secretary Chris Watt said an independent authority similar to the old Schools Commission would ensure adequate resources were provided for all students.