Chop from the top: The Perth private schools getting a funding haircut

More than 40 elite Perth schools will face annual Commonwealth cash cuts as the federal government attempts to reduce payments to “overfunded” institutions by 2029.

St Mary’s Anglican School, Hale School and Perth College are among hundreds of private institutions nationwide found to have received up to 40 per cent above their funding entitlement, which will now undergo annual reductions.

The list of 299 schools and institutions federal Education Minister Jason Clare has vowed to transition down to their assessed School Resourcing Standard was published for the first time during Senate estimates and obtained by this masthead.

Forty-two of the institutions on the list are in WA.

The SRS is an estimate of how much public funding a school needs to meet its students’ educational needs, funded on a per-student basis.

The model has been amended several times since it was introduced in 2014, with the most recent changes being introduced in 2020 relating to the capacity of parents to contribute to the cost of education.

Government schools are entitled to receive the full amount of base SRS funding, whereas base funding for non-government schools is adjusted according to the ‘capacity to contribute’ (CTC) by the parent community of that school.

Independent schools that were paid less than their SRS entitlement were brought up to standard by 2023. Now, the federal government will gradually transition overfunded schools down to its intended 80 per cent of the SRS by 2029 (The federal government pays 80 per cent of each private school’s SRS benchmark, and the states pay the rest.)

While some schools will have their SRS reduced, actual federal funding per student may increase in dollar terms.

In 2023 St Mary’s Anglican School in Karrinyup received 120 per cent of the SRS and around $7.5 million in federal funding.

By 2029, it will be funded at 80 per cent of the SRS and receive around $6.5 million in federal funding per year.

In 2024, John XXIII College in Mount Claremont received 126 per cent of the SRS and about $8.9 million federal funding – by 2029 that amount will be just over $7 million.

Others also receiving more than 100 per cent of the SRS, as of 2023, include All Saints’ College (102 per cent), Guildford Grammar School (104 per cent), Hale School (115 per cent), Penrhos College (107 per cent), Perth College (115 per cent) and Wesley College (109 per cent).

Association of Independent Schools WA managing director Chris Massey said the non-government school sector was essential for easing the overall demand on public funds for education, allowing resources to be directed to areas of need.

“The non-government school sector receives significantly less government funding compared to public schools,” he said.

“The sacrifices made by our parents and families through school fees towards the cost of non-government schooling delivers significant savings to the government and therefore less of a burden on taxpayers.”

The data also shows parents at the above-mentioned schools also earn median incomes of between $240,000 and $298,000.

Economist and public education advocate Trevor Cobbold, a former Productivity Commission economist who now runs public education advocacy group Save Our Schools, said indexation would offset the SRS reduction for most transitioning schools.

“Only a small minority will actually have their funding reduced, and this is overdue because they have long been overfunded by millions by the taxpayer at the expense of better funding for disadvantaged public schools,” he said.

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