No school to lose funds: Gillard
Public and private school funding will be based on the number of disadvantaged students they educate, their location and the fees they charge parents under a looming shake-up of Federal education spending.
But anticipating a scare campaign that suggests wealthy private schools will see their funding cut, Education Minister Julia Gillard last night guaranteed no school would be worse off financially following the introduction of a new funding formula from 2013.
While Labor in opposition pledged it would not touch the Socio- Economic Status formula used to calculate Federal school funding for the current schools agreement signed in 2008, it flagged a review of arrangements before the next deal took effect from 2013.
The existing formula, which uses the address of a student's parents to determine a school's funding allocation, has been heavily criticised by public education advocates for being too generous towards elite private schools.
In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night, Ms Gillard said the new formula, planned to be revealed next year, would harness data collated for the Government's schools comparison website My School.
The Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage, which looks at characteristics of students such as their family's income and employment, would be one element.
Each school's income sources such as government grants, student fees and donations, as well their location and number of indigenous and special needs students enrolled, would also be taken into account.
"What is truly important about this data is that it allows us, as a community, to debate what schools need in a way that is fully informed," Ms Gillard said.
She said she expected Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to begin an "untruthful fear campaign" to scare schools but she pledged they would not lose funding. "While enrolments will always change, no school will lose a dollar of funding in the sense that their school budget per student will not reduce in dollar terms," she said.
Association of Independent Schools of WA deputy director Ron Gorman said the sector had concerns some schools could be disadvantaged.
He said while a school may have its government funding maintained, rising education costs would erode its value and put pressure on school fees.
