Libs shift ground on school funding pledge

THE federal opposition has backed down from its commitment to increase funding for schools by 6 per cent a year.

THE federal opposition has backed down from its commitment to increase funding for schools by 6 per cent a year, after official figures showed the inflation rate for education has dropped by about two percentage points.

Federal funding of non-government schools rises by a proportion of the increase in state government spending on public schools. Figures released this week show state government spending rose 3.9 per cent last year, compared with 5.9 per cent the year before, meaning non-government schools will receive about $150 million less this year.

But opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne has repeatedly committed a Coalition government to increasing funding to Catholic and independent schools by 6 per cent a year, on the basis that is the average rise in state government spending. Following Julia Gillard's education crusade speech last week, Mr Pyne said: "The Coalition . . . has a very clear policy for schools; we will index schools at 6 per cent. The Coalition is committed to $4.2 billion of new money for schools through 6 per cent indexation."

But a spokesman for Mr Pyne said the Coalition's policy was to increase funding by the AGSRC (average government school recurrent costs), which had averaged 6 per cent over recent years, not to increase funding by 6 per cent. "While it varies from year to year, the AGSRC has delivered an average of 6 per cent a year in funding increases over the past decade," he said.

School Education Minister Peter Garrett said the opposition's education policy was "in complete tatters".