this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Australian public school funding falls behind private schools as states fail to meet targets (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 year ago by LineNoise@kbin.social to c/australia@aussie.zone
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Calls for special deal to be struck for NT, which has biggest funding gap between public and private schools

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[–] Nath@aussie.zone -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There is a public school system available to everyone.

That sounds like it should be the case, but it isn't. The Catholic schools alone account for something like 20% of the Australian student population. If just those schools weren't there, our existing education system would collapse. Like it or not, we all rely on the presence of independant schools in our community.

If people want to send their kids to private schools, they have every right to, but should be prepared to cover 100% of the expenses without any aid from the government.

This argument has been made before. In 1962, it lead to six Catholic schools in Goulburn to go on strike. The influx of 5,000 students on the public schools in the area demonstrated that independant schools save taxpayers money. Go have a read about it: https://www.robertmenziesinstitute.org.au/on-this-day/goulburn-catholic-school-strike

Imagine that on a national scale. And again, that's just the Catholics. There is not capacity in the public system for every student in Australia. Not by a long shot.

[–] UnknownQuantity@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll just leave you with some numbers. Here are school numbers (government, catholic, independent...). Please note the vast difference in number of government schools VS the rest. https://shorturl.at/tEPT6 (acara.edu.au)

Here is how much funding the education department provides this year: 10.6B for 6600 public schools and 16.4B for ~3000 of the rest. https://shorturl.at/bFH89 (education.gov.au)

All we need to do is fund public schools. Given the fact that Australia has a secular government and the catholic church pays no taxes, while still receiving taxpayer funded handouts it's only fair.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This has been quite the rabbit hole, thanks for sharing. I've learned more about how much fundung the Federal government provides for government schools (for the students at my kids' school, it's about $2.5k per kid per year).

Are you following topic under discussion? The headline summarises the issue, but the crux of it is also with the very link you pasted: "State and territory governments provide most of the public recurrent funding for government schools. The Commonwealth provides most of the public recurrent funding for non-government schools."

You've compared the funding that the federal government provides to government schools to what it provides to independent schools. However, the bulk of government school funding comes from the state governments. Total government funding (state + federal) to public students is a greater than what non-government schools receive. Normally.

Which brings us to the article: Only ACT, SA and WA are meeting or exceeding their fundung targets for 2023. The other states are lagging a little.

All we need to do is fund public schools. Given the fact that Australia has a secular government and the catholic church pays no taxes, while still receiving taxpayer funded handouts it’s only fair.

I don't see the solution you're suggesting. Do you think the federal government should take education off the states? I don't think that will be a popular policy. I only picked on the Catholic schools because they have so many students. This isn't a discussion about religion or tax reform. Pretend rather that the Catholic schools are being run by the National David Boon Fan Club. It changes nothing.

[–] foo@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Non government schools aren't entitled to any money from the public.

[–] Noughmad@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

How can you consider Catholic schools "independent"?

And the idea isn't too get rid of those schools, it's to use the money that usually goes to these schools to fund regular public schools instead.