Fears funding cuts loom for private schools

BY BREANNA TUCKER, SCHOOLS REPORTER, CANBERRA TIMES

08 Sep, 2011

Independent and Catholic schools fear research papers issued by the Gonski review are favouring funding cuts to the non-government sector.

The Independent Education Union believes the reports are pushing for a new indexation model that relies on national trends rather than the costs of educating students.

Federal secretary Chris Watt said such a measure could have significant effects on the sector, including job losses and a drop in the quality of education.

Mr Watt's concerns centre on reviews of the Average Government School Recurrent Costs index, which is essentially a measure of how much it costs to educate a student in a public school.

He said the index determined funding to both sectors, with non-government schools receiving up to 70per cent of the AGSRC from the Federal Government, with other funding coming from the state government, fees and fundraising.

But Mr Watt said this system had been reviewed and the reports suggested the index should reflect wider Australian economy measures such as the Consumer Price Index and Labour Price Index.

''People often argue that CPI is not a good measure for indexation as it does not include things like rent or mortgages, so it hardly reflects the true costs of living to the general community,'' he said. ''The same concept applies to education and if you were only to fund non-government schools based on the general costs of education, rather than the real costs, the non-government sector would be 20per cent worse off.''

Read the full article on The Canberra Times website, Fears funding cuts loom for private schools, 8 September.

Read the IEU media release, 'Gonski research papers softening schools for funding cuts', 6 September.

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