Further to our article Putting decision-making powers in the hands of school leaders on 22nd June, Julia Gillard recently delivered the Government’s long-awaited official response to the Gonski school review. Supporting the review, Gillard called for a “national crusade” to improve the Australian educational system.
Gillard announced a new school funding model that would pour an additional $6.5 billion into the education sector every year. The current school funding model, which was criticised in the Gonski review for its complexity, expires by the end of 2013.
The government will ask the states and territories, and government, private and Catholic schools to hand over more power to principals - including over budgets and staff selection. The school funding plan mirrors the Government’s Empowering Local Schools initiative encouraging local level decision-making.
"It is a model that I will now take to the states and territories, to Catholic and independent schools, in order to win their support," Gillard said. With the majority of the extra funding going to public schools, however, Catholic and independent schools have warned that the new funding model would lead to school fee increases.
"Currently, the federal government provides about 30 per cent of the public funding to schools and the states and territories fund about 70. So, it is a model that challenges all of us, the federal government and state and territory governments to change and to find more resources for education,” Gillard went on.
While the Federal Government is looking to introduce the new school funding model in 2014, following the federal election, the Opposition has stated that it wants to extend the current funding model by two years. The Opposition called the Government’s move “election policy” rather than “education policy” and stated it would repeal any legislation to introduce the new reform if elected to government.
