Former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, continues to lead a rebel Coalition group lobbying against the Turnbull Government’s revamped $18.6 billion “Gonski 2.0” needs-based school funding plan because it promises to reduce the growth in funding to Catholic schools. From The Australian:
Tony Abbott and former defence minister Kevin Andrews have used the Coalition party room meeting to put Malcolm Turnbull on notice about the government’s $18.6 billion school funding boost, warning of the impact on Catholic schools.
In the biggest debate of the Tuesday meeting ahead of the federal budget, the former prime minister told the Prime Minister and his colleagues of the need to be very careful in adjusting funding for the Catholic sector.
Liberal ACT senator Zed Seselja also aired his concern about the hit to Catholic schools in his region from a new funding formula that has sparked claims of a $3,000 increase in school fees over a decade.
While government schools are expected to get a 95 per cent funding increase over a decade, this falls to 75 per cent for independent schools and 54 per cent for Catholic schools.
While the funding growth is 5.2 per cent for government schools, it is 4.2 per cent for independent schools and 3.7 per cent for Catholic schools over the next four years.
Here we go again. Last year’s report, entitled Uneven Playing Field: The State of Australia’s Schools, projected that under existing policy settings, non-government school students – and those in Catholic schools in particular – are on track to receive far greater taxpayer funding than average public school students by 2020:
How the likes of Tony Abbott can support such an inequitable outcome beggars belief. The fact that Gonski 2.0 is seeking to remove some funding from the non-government school sector and redirect it into disadvantaged public schools is entirely sensible and represents good policy.
