Sector demands urgent answers

THE non-government school sector has raised several key complaints with Labor over its proposed overhaul of school funding.

THE non-government school sector has raised several key complaints with Labor over its proposed overhaul of school funding and is demanding answers urgently on a range of fronts.

The major alarm is uncertainty over whether some schools will be worse off, with Catholic and independent school bodies expressing concern about the lack of funds available over the next three years.

The crucial issues are what funding levels for individual schools will be and whether the volatility of the new loadings regime will lead to any unintended consequences.

Less than $1 billion has been provided in the budget for Labor's overhaul of school funding in 2013-14 and 2014-15, with the majority of funds in its $9.8bn package to be back-ended over the next six years.

Concerns have focused on whether most of this money will ever eventuate and whether the $437 million in extra funding for next year will be further eroded by an increase in school enrolments.

This has sparked fears that the total amount of available new money in the first year of the new regime could be less than $300m.

To allay concerns, the government has given a guarantee that no school will be worse off under its plan, guaranteeing schools will receive at least their 2013 funding plus 3 per cent indexation.

Despite this, concern has focused on whether schools that fall within the Gonski model will have the same access to resources as they did before.

The government's shake-up will mean that national partnership and targeted program money will now be delivered to schools in the form of base funding in addition to new loadings to cater to the individual needs of students.

According to the budget, these redirections amounted to $2.1bn in savings on school programs elsewhere.

A school will fall within the new model if its level of public funding, as calculated by the Gonski formula, is greater than its actual funding and deemed to be in need of greater assistance.

Under the plan, the federal schools budget will accordingly grow at 4.7 per cent and the states' will grow at 3 per cent.

Once a school meets the new school resourcing standard, it can expect to receive indexation from the federal government of 3.6 per cent and 3 per cent if it is above the SRS.

If a school is below the SRS, the indexation rates will be variable.

The SRS represents the cost of educating a child in a school where at least 80 per cent of students are achieving above the NAPLAN-testing minimum standard for their grade in reading and numeracy for three years.

Next year, the government has estimated the SRS to be $9271 per primary school student and $12,193 per high school student in addition to per-student loadings depending upon a range of factors including socioeconomic background. But a planned 2015 review of indexation arrangements has troubled the Catholic and independent schools, which warn of further uncertainty.

Fears are also mounting among non-government schools the new loadings system will have "unintended consequences" requiring an appeals mechanism or system to address any new funding inequities.