Ei-iE

The Australian government’s cuts to Gonski funding will rip AUS$2.67 billion out of public schools, equivalent to 20,000 teachers, according to new research highlighted by the Australian Education Union (AEU), one of Education International’s national affiliates.

This far-reaching impact is due to the Abbott Government’s decision to abandon the final two years of Gonski funding, stresses the research prepared for the AEU by funding expert Dr Jim McMorrow. In addition, the government is effectively tearing up signed agreements with the States, and has decided to reduce school indexation to the rate of inflation from 2018. Private schools will lose AUS$1.21 billion over the same period, according to the research.

Disadvantaged students to be hurt the most

AEU Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos said that the bulk of the funding would be cut from public schools, which educated the most disadvantaged students.

“Abandoning the Gonski agreements will mean the loss of staff and of crucial programmes to support students,” he said. “We are talking about losing literacy and numeracy programmes, speech therapists, and other programmes that improve student outcomes. The losers from this decision will be students with disability, students from low income families, regional students, students from non-English speaking homes and Indigenous students.”

These are the students which the Gonski Review recognised need extra funding in order to make the most of their potential, Gavrielatos added.

“The last two years of the Gonski agreements contained two-thirds of the overall funding,” he said. “This was the period when the real increase in resources to disadvantaged schools was to occur.”

Public schools will lose out

McMorrow’s research concludes that the loss of National Partnership Payments to schools will nullify the effect of extra Gonski funding in the first four years of the agreements, and that the loss of these payments will hit public schools the hardest, he noted.

Gavrielatos also highlighted the research findings that the percentage of Federal Government schools funding which goes to public schools will stay at just 38 per cent through to 2019/20, despite these schools educating 65 per cent of students.

“Dr McMorrow has found that failing to honour the last two years of the Gonski agreements is the equivalent of removing 20,000 teachers from schools,” Gavrielatos said. “There is no way that money can be slashed from the system without hurting students.”

EI: Government must honour Gonski agreement

“Education International (EI) strongly condemns these planned cuts in public funding in education, which will have disastrous effects on the equal access to quality teachers and education for all,” said EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. “We urge the Abbott Government not to abandon the final two years of Gonski funding.”

The EI Unite for Quality Education campaign promotes inclusive education, grounded on three pillars, i.e. well-trained teachers, quality teaching and learning environments, and adequate and well-designed teaching and learning tools, he reiterated.