Two years to sort funding: Pyne

THE federal opposition has backed down on its promise to repeal any Gonski education reform deals by the beginning of next year.

THE federal opposition has backed down on its promise to repeal any Gonski education reform deals by the beginning of next year, saying it will take two years to sort out the Labor government's funding system.

South Australia yesterday became the second state to sign a Gonski agreement, ensuring it will receive an extra $656 million in funding -- indexed to $1.1 billion by 2019.

The deal was signed after Julia Gillard brokered a $90m increase in funding on its original offer -- comprising an extra $60m in federal funds and $30m from the South Australian government.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said if all states failed to sign agreements it was untenable to have two different funding systems.

"Unless there's a national agreement we will repeal this proposal and keep the current model for two years while we sort out the chaos which Labor has created," Mr Pyne said.

"If the government achieves a national agreement, then we don't want to create any more uncertainty than Labor has, so we'll keep it, but at the moment they have three jurisdictions out of eight that have agreed to the funding model."

Mr Pyne said SA would be $136m worse off under the new agreement.

"The redirections that are in the budget to fund the new school funding model mean that the money being put in is less than the money being taken out," he said.

"If the old system had continued as the Coalition has promised, there would have been $136m more money for SA over the next three years than will occur under the new school funding model.

"They're taking out $3.1bn in the budget and they're redirecting $2.8bn to this new school funding model."

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said it would be a "disaster" if the Coalition repealed the legislation.

Under its deal, public schools will receive an indexed $717m over six years, Catholic schools will be given an extra $197m and independent schools $186m.

The schools will receive $84m in 2014, which will increase annually to reach $351m by 2019.

Both Ms Gillard and Mr Weatherill said the extra funding would come from budget contingencies and reserves, including additional Medicare levy funding.

Mr Weatherill said the state would not be disadvantaged in receiving a smaller amount than NSW and Western Australia.

He said funding would be committed immediately and would be used to offer additional help such as extra school service officers, health specialists or teachers.

"We know what quality teaching looks like, we know what quality leadership looks like, we also know what great schools look like . . . we want all of the schools and all of the teachers to be lifted to that standard and that's what these resources give us the opportunity to do," Mr Weatherill said.

The Catholic and independent school sectors in SA have been calling for increased certainty in funding and extra money to bring them up to national standards.