MEDIA RELEASE

LEARNING TOGETHER: ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH CHOICE AND OPPORTUNITY

11 March, 2004 MIN 639/04

The Australian Government will provide a record $31.3 billion in funding for Australian schools over the next four years, 2005-2008. This is an increase of $8 billion over the current quadrennium and is the largest ever commitment by an Australian Government to schooling in Australia.

School funding is a combined responsibility

2.25 million students or 68% of all school students attend state schools and receive 76% of the taxpayer funds which go to schools. 1.04 million children or 32% attend independent and Catholic schools and receive the remaining 24% of taxpayer’s funds.

Parents will contribute an additional $4.1 billion in fees and donations to independent and Catholic schools this year while parents with children at state government schools will contribute about $1 billion.

Under the Australian Constitution, state schools are the responsibility of State and Territory Governments. They own the schools, manage them and have the major financial responsibility for them. Since 1985, Australian Governments – Labor and Coalition, have been the primary source of funds for Catholic and Independent schools.

Every child in a Catholic or independent school receives less public funding than they would in a state government school for which their parents’ State and Commonwealth taxes have already paid.

The new quadrennium arrangements I am announcing today will deliver more money to each school sector over the coming four years.

Catholic systemic schools

As has been announced, in 2005 the 1610 Catholic systemic schools will become fully integrated into the SES system. This means that Catholic systemic schools will attract funding on a school-by-school basis according to the socio economic status of the communities that the school serves. (See details of the SES system attached). In the current quadrennium Catholic schools are attracting funding based on a fixed rate of 56.2% of the average cost of educating a child in a government school (51.2% in the ACT).

The families of the 607,000 students in Catholic schools will benefit from the $362 million extra (above indexation) which will flow through to their schools as a consequence of becoming part of the SES funding system. $12.6 billion will be delivered to Catholic schools in general recurrent funding in the next four years. Parents and friends will contribute a further estimated $7.1 billion in fees and donations.

State Government schools

State and Territory Governments were strongly of the view that the Australian Government should retain the generous Average Government School Recurrent Cost (AGSRC) method of indexation as the basis of determining the increases of Australian Government funds to state school budgets. I am pleased to announce that, following State representations, the AGSRC is being retained. This will continue to deliver increased funding to state government schools of about 6% per annum.

As a consequence of this decision, in the next four years the Australian Government will deliver $9.8 billion in supplementary funding to state governments for their schools – an increase of $1.9 billion over the current quadrennium. $7.2 billion of this $9.8 billion will be in general recurrent grants. This commitment means that in 2008, the Australian Government will spend $2.7 billion on state government schools. This will be $1.3 billion dollars (or 95%) more than what Labor spent in its last year in office.

The State and Territory Governments have not increased their funding to their own state schools at the same rate as the Australian government. Last year, the average budget increase by the states and territories was only 2.1%. I will be seeking a commitment from the States and Territories that they increase their funding to their state schools in their budgets this year by at least the rate of inflation. I will also be urging State and Territory Governments to commit to a transparent, nationally consistent formula for indexing the funding to their own state schools in a similar manner to the way the Australian Government indexes its funding.

The AGSRC will also be maintained as the basis of indexing recurrent funding for Catholic and Independent schools.

Independent schools

The parents of the 452,000 students who choose to attend one of the great diversity of Independent schools such as Anglican, Christian, Indigenous, Seventh Day Adventist, Islamic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Jewish, Montessori, or Rudolf Steiner schools will continue to be funded under the SES funding system which delivers funds according to the socio economic status of the communities that the school serves. These independent schools will receive $7.6 billion in general recurrent funding over the coming four years. It is estimated parents and friends will also contribute a further $12 billion through fees and donations.

The increase in enrolments in non-government schools is expected to be significantly higher than the increase in government school enrolments over the next four years, with most of the growth in the lower SES schools that attract higher funding. If funding to schools is adjusted to exclude enrolment and related effects, then the increase in funding to Independent schools over the quadrennium is 27%, to Government schools is 28% and to Catholic schools is 32%

No school will have their funding cut

When the SES funding arrangements were introduced in 2001, the Australian Government was determined that no school would face a cut to its funding. Schools that would receive less funding under an SES measure had their year 2000 per capita entitlements guaranteed and adjusted in line with AGSRC (commonly referred to as a ‘funding maintained school’). This commitment that no school will lose funding as a result of the SES funding arrangements has been continued into the 2005-08 quadrennium.

Every Independent school has had its SES score recalculated using the latest available student address and census data. This new score will determine its per capita funding levels in 2005 to 2008. 309 schools have a lower SES score than that used in the current quadrennium such that they will receive increased funding in 2005 to 2008. 259 schools have a higher SES score such that they will receive less funding over the next four years than if they stayed on their current score. However, in line with the Government’s commitment that no school will lose funding as a result of the SES funding arrangements, the Government will ‘funding guarantee’ their 2004 per capita entitlements until AGSRC indexation brings the value of the lower score up to the same level.

In addition, the schools that are currently "funding maintained" will continue to have this status for the next four years unless the new score indicates a higher per capita funding rate than the school currently receives. This fulfils the Government’s 2001 election commitment.

For a full list of the funding increases of each of the 1043 schools, please refer to http://schoolgrg.dest.gov.au/Help/SESInfo/All_schools_for_press-release.pdf. The list is ordered by the per capita increase that schools can expect over the next four years.

Capital Grants, Numeracy and Literacy funding and other measures

The quadrennium package also contains funding of $1.5 billion for the Capital Grants programme. This represents an increase of $182m or 14% over the previous quadrennium. It includes an additional amount (above indexation) of $17 million over the quadrennium to provide specific capital grants funding for non-government schools in isolated areas and communities in the Northern Territory. This funding will make a real difference to non-government schools in remote and isolated communities which face substantially greater costs for capital construction and refurbishment than metropolitan and regional schools.

The package includes an estimated $2 billion for a new overarching targeted programme, the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Programme (currently known as SAISO program), which will be targeted at the most disadvantaged students, including students with disabilities. This funding represents an increase of $393 million or 25% over the previous quadrennium. This funding includes an injection of an extra $25.6 million (above indexation) for students with disabilities.

The programme will have three elements: Schools Grants – to assist schools to provide students with additional assistance, Non-Government Centre Support - to assist centres that provide support to children with disabilities, and National Projects - which will support national initiatives and research to improve learning outcomes for educationally disadvantaged students.

The package will also include

New performance measures tied to funding

A key element of the new quadrennium schools package is a greatly enhanced performance framework for Australian Government funding. This flows from the National Education Framework for Schools agenda which I announced in November last year. The performance framework will be strengthened to ensure the provision of meaningful information to parents, support for the professional standing of teachers, national consistency in schooling and the creation of safer schools.

Specifically, funding to schools will be tied to:

• Greatly enhancing the information publicly available on school performance so that parents can make informed decisions and poorly performing schools can be identified and targeted for action. Such information will include academic outcomes and improvements on the previous years, what vocational education training options are offered to students; school leaver destinations; the professional qualifications and professional development undertaken by teachers; absentee rates

• Ensuring that schools report to parents in years 3, 5 and 7 on their child’s performance against national literacy and numeracy benchmarks

• Requiring educational authorities to bring in a uniform school starting age by 2010 and to commit to common outcomes testing in the key areas of Maths, Science, English and Civics and Citizenship.

• Creating safer schools by requiring a formal commitment to a national safe schools framework.

• Requiring school reports to abide by broadly stated principles that ensure that parents receive timely, plain language feedback on their child’s performance.

• Expanding the suite of performance measures and targets beyond numeracy and literacy to include scientific literacy, ICT literacy, VET in schools and Civics and Citizenship.

• A commitment by State and Territory Governments that there be no cost-shifting between the states/territory government and the Australian Government.

Many of these conditions of funding will be subject to a consultation process with parents that the Government is initiating today. I am seeking input from parents across the nation to guide the development of the details underpinning these conditions and to provide comment on a range of other important schooling matters.

Conclusion

The Howard Government is committed to education and is providing record sums of money to the nation’s schools.

Committed to choice, the Howard Government is determined that all parents, having paid their taxes, will receive support in the choice of school they believe best suits the interests of their child – state government, Catholic or independent. That level of support will be determined by the socio-economic circumstances of the families from which children come.

Legislation will be introduced into the Parliament mid-year to give effect to the package from January 2005.

For state by state media releases, please access: http://www.dest.gov.au/ministers/nelson/media.asp

Media contact:
Dr Nelson’s Office: Ross Hampton 0419 484 095

SES FUNDING ARRANGEMENTS FOR NON-GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

The Australian Government funds non-government schools according to a formula which measures the socioeconomic status (SES) of the communities from which a school draws its students. The SES funding model involves linking student residential addresses to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) national Census data to obtain a socioeconomic profile of the school community and measure its capacity to support the school.

The SES Index that is used to calculate schools’ SES scores measures the income, education and occupation levels of residents within a Census Collection District (CD). The CD is the smallest spatial unit in the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. In urban areas CDs average about 220 dwellings. In rural areas the number of dwellings per CD reduces as population densities decrease.

Student residential addresses are collected from each school and mapped to the correct CDs by a process called geocoding. Each school’s community is defined in terms of the CDs from which it draws its students and the school’s SES score is calculated on the basis of the average SES of these CDs. Schools which draw students from areas of predominantly high SES receive lower levels of funding than schools which draw from areas of average or low SES.

SES funding ranges from a minimum entitlement of 13.7% of the average cost of educating a student in a government school – Average Government School Recurrent Costs (AGSRC) for schools with an SES score of 130 and above to a maximum entitlement of 70% of this cost for schools with an SES score of 85 and below. Schools with SES scores within this range receive proportional funding based on their individual SES scores.

The SES approach, unlike the Education Resources Index (ERI) system which it replaced, is transparent and objective, based on independent data that are consistent for all schools. One of the key principles that underpin the SES model is that private investment in education should not be discouraged and, therefore, it does not take into account a school’s private income from fees or any other sources.

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