Under Libs, the richer the school, the bigger the pie

THE most affluent private schools received the biggest boost in funding in the 10 years of the Howard government system, touted by Education Minister Christopher Pyne as a fairer and more equitable needs-based funding model than that introduced by Julia Gillard.

Federal Education Department figures show that funding for the wealthiest private primary schools in NSW grew by more than 80 per cent between 2000 and 2010, while funding for the elite private high schools rose by 50 per cent.

Of the 12 categories measuring a school's capacity to generate its own income through fees, fundraising and investments, funding for the lowest level of high schools rose by 12 per cent and by 25 per cent for primary schools.

The Howard government introduced a new funding model in 2001, which allocated money based on the socio-economic status of students in a school.

A school was assigned an SES score, calculated from the postcode of students' home addresses and linked back to census data, which was linked to a set level of funding. There were about 280 different funding categories for primary and secondary schools.

In introducing the SES system, the Howard government removed the measure of a school's capacity to raise its own income, and so the biggest jump in funding flowed through to the high-fee private schools.

Private schools, particularly boarding schools, attract students from a broad range of areas crossing Sydney and the state, with the result that some schools' SES scores under-estimated the affluence of their students, also leading to a boost in funding.

The level of commonwealth funding was calculated as a percentage, ranging from 13.7 per cent to 70 per cent, of the average amount state governments spent per student in their schools. As a result, every time state governments increased funding for their schools - which educate the majority of disadvantaged students - federal funding for private schools increased too.

Labor's model, based on the Gonski report, breaks this nexus, and funds schools on the basis of the need of the students it teaches, not which sector it belongs to or where their students live.

The Gonski report also calculated the amount of money required to educate children to an aspirational level, replacing the existing system of funding on a historical basis.

The other great advantage of the Gonski model is that it gives extra funding to schools with concentrations of disadvantage, where the majority of students might be indigenous or poor.