letter to Minister Garrett

23 July 2012

The Hon Peter Garrett AM MP
Minister for Schools Education, Early Childhood and Youth
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Dear Minister

I am writing regarding the Federal Government’s Review of Funding for Schooling.

As you would be aware, the IEU has supported the architecture of the model outlined in the report from the Gonski panel and has participated in the Ministerial Schools Funding Reference Group.

It is timely however, that I write to formally raise our views about a number of matters needing clarification or further development that have emerged since the release of the Gonski Report in February.

Schooling Resource Standard

The IEU believes that the reference school notion proposed in the Gonski report needs further development and consideration of other alternatives. Essentially, the IEU is concerned that the ‘effective and efficient’ schools that make up the reference group of schools will not be sufficiently representative of Australian schools and potentially have unintended outcomes for actual levels of the resource standard on a year to year basis.

The IEU strongly supports the Gonski Report recommendations with respect to full public funding for non-government schools to special schools, schools that are the only school in the area and where the school does not charge compulsory fees and has little capacity to do so.

The IEU believes that the Federal Government’s commitment to no school being worse-off should be measured against the base funding provided through the Student Resource Standard.

The IEU believes that it is inappropriate to include the funding arising from loadings as these loadings are intended to target particular individual or groups of students with disadvantage. As a consequence the ‘loading component’ is extremely volatile and if any number of students leave a particular school the funding impact can be significant, yet the school still needs to operate effectively and with certainty for those students still enrolled.

The IEU has also made it clear in the past that the Federal Government’s commitment to ‘no worse-off’ should be measured in real terms and would encourage the Government to make this commitment and clarification.

Indexation

The IEU has consistently urged governments for many years to ensure that funding to schools be maintained in real terms. The IEU is concerned that there is no public detail on a likely model for the annual indexation of funding to non-government schools.

It is evident that significant changes in education programs and initiatives, predominantly as initiatives of government policy, have meant that school operating costs have increased at a greater rate than broader measures of community or economic growth. Accordingly, the IEU urges that the Federal Government to commit to indexation of school funding based on real cost increases in schooling.

Socio-economic status

The Gonski Report recommends that the existing area-based SES measure continue to be used in the short-term. The IEU supports this recommendation.

However, the IEU is concerned about the development of an index based on school enrolment form collected data, relating to parental occupation, that in the view of the IEU has significant risks and questions about data integrity.

Instead, the IEU believes that further work should be undertaken to improve the quality of the area-based SES data that is collected under controlled conditions and much less likely to be subject to manipulation and indeed be significantly more current.

Loadings

The IEU supports the concept of loadings as outlined in the Gonski Report and believes that the mix of loadings; students with a disability, low SES background, indigenous students, language background other than English students, school size and location, is appropriate.

The IEU is concerned about the availability and quality of the data to assist in the determination of these loadings for individual schools/students and the implications of this for legislation by the end of 2012.

Further, the IEU is particularly concerned about the relative proportion of loadings as a percentage of total funding available to a school. Historically targeted programs, aimed at dealing with some identified disadvantage, accounted for 5%-8% of total funding. The IEU understands that the current modeling indicates that 25%-30% of a school’s total funding could be composed of loading amounts.

This significant increase in ‘targeted disadvantage funding’ raises real concerns about one of the IEU’s key principles for funding, namely certainty. With such a large and volatile component of total funding, the IEU is concerned for the job security of its members working in non-government schools.

Legislation

The IEU notes that legislation needs to be before the Australian Parliament before the end of 2012 to provide for ‘certainty’ for 2014 irrespective of whether the Gonski Report be implemented in full, in part or not at all.

The IEU requests that the Federal Government release draft legislation for consultation as soon as possible. Such draft legislation would assist in understanding the Government’s responses to many of the outstanding issues raised above and the extent of funding commitment by the Federal Government for implementation of the recommendations of the Gonski Report, and any transition or phasing-in arrangements.

I would welcome the opportunity to further discuss with you the concerns raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely

Chris Watt
Federal Secretary