States are concerned they will have no input into schools funding before the budget in May after they were told the issue would not be discussed at a meeting of state and federal education ministers on Friday.
On Monday federal education minister, Simon Birmingham wrote to state education and territory ministers noting that their proposed April meeting to approve the final schools funding model had been delayed until June.
“An additional [education] council meeting held just prior to Coag in June would allow further discussions with state and territory education ministers about future funding and reform arrangements,” he wrote.
A spokesman for Birmingham confirmed the proposed schools funding model, to apply from 2018, would not be discussed at the education council meeting on Friday.
The acting Victorian education minister, Gayle Tierney, said that Birmingham was “treating the states and territories with contempt, offering only verbal briefings and no detail”.
“This proposed meeting will be after the federal budget – so how are the state and territory education ministers expected to have any real input into the school funding model?
“Victorian families deserve better than vague statements about further discussions.”
Birmingham said the Turnbull government had been consistent on the point that future schools funding arrangements would be concluded “at the first Coag meeting of this year and that remains the timeframe we work toward”.
“We must get this right. The Turnbull government is committed to correcting the 27 special deals and arrangements we inherited from the previous Labor government.”
Birmingham said that the 2016 budget confirmed schools funding would grow from $16bn in 2016 to more than $20bn, which was “above inflation and above enrolment growth projections”.
Labor’s shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, has said that the 2014 budget cut $30bn from schools’ projected funding growth over 10 years, including from years five and six of needs-based funding agreements negotiated by the previous Labor government.
Plibersek called for the Coalition to release its new proposed funding model, arguing that schools need certainty about their funding from next year onwards.
On Tuesday she said the Liberals “need to come clean immediately about how much money they will rip from each state and each school”.
“Malcolm Turnbull knows parents, teachers, and state governments, will be furious when they discover how badly their schools will be affected, so he is trying to keep it secret for as long as he can.”
On Tuesday last week, Liberal MP Ian Goodenough told the lower house that the Independent Schools Council of Australia “is calling on the government to provide clarity on school funding arrangements for 2018 so that independent schools have the capacity to plan their operations going forward with confidence”.
He noted that some schools will have their commonwealth funding reduced as a result of needs-based education funding, changes in the way need is assessed and the introduction of the schooling resource standard from 2014.
“Currently, considerable uncertainty attaches to arrangements for non-government school funding beyond 2017.”
Plibersek said the comments showed that “even some of Turnbull’s own MPs are complaining about the Liberal party’s incompetence on schools”.
In a policy update dated 23 March, Christian Schools Australia national policy executive officer, Mark Spencer, said that with the budget looming the federal government’s position should be “well advanced with concrete proposals being costed and considered”.
Spencer recounted his version of a meeting with Birmingham in which he said the minister “indicated, not surprisingly, that the government’s proposals would require legislative amendments”.
“With the current difficulties being faced by the government in securing the passage of legislation through the Senate it may still be that certainty is a little way off.”
When asked about whether legislation was required to implement the new schools funding model, Birmingham’s spokesman referred to evidence given by education department officials that the current budget, including the removal of $30bn from projected growth, can be done without legislation.
The same official noted, however, that it depends “on what the options are”, suggesting that more radical reformulation of the funding model will require legislation.
Spencer said in his note that “the quantum of funding being received this year will continue for all schools unless there is explicit legislative change”.
