The Australian Education Union argues the current funding agreement on the table – which claims to deliver ‘full and fair’ funding to public schools – fails to offer a ‘genuine pathway’ to reach 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard and will intensify the workload of already stretched and under-resourced teachers.
AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe indicated the national ban would remain in place until the union’s executive determines the Government has an offer that will no longer leave public schools short-changed.
“We have made our position very clear. After more than a decade of inequality and endless promises by governments, we cannot stand by while another generation of students miss out on the resources that they need for their education,” Haythorpe said.
“And we cannot accept a reform agenda that will be rolled out from next year while the status of funding for NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA and the ACT remains unclear and increasingly looks as if it will be status quo.”
Tasmania, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory have signed on to the deal, which promises an additional 2.5 per cent of Commonwealth funding.
The remaining states have so far held out for a 5 per cent increase, despite the Government’s ultimatum: fail to sign on and the current agreement will roll over for next year.
Education Minister Jason Clare has made it clear the 10-year $16 billion deal will require states to reach specific targets, including bolstering the teaching workforce, lifting NAPLAN results and Year 12 retention rates, as well as boosting student attendance.
The AEU has argued this reform agenda “places an increased workload burden on the teaching profession, while at the same time denying schools the resources needed to achieve high quality teaching and learning outcomes for their students”.
Speaking on Nine’s Today show this morning, Clare said many teachers supported the Government’s improvement agenda.
“I disagree fundamentally with what the union is arguing, but I back our teachers every single day, because they do such an important job,” Clare said.
“Many teachers out there, if you ask them, will back these reforms. They grab me every single day and say, ‘Keep going, mate’.”
When asked by a journalist where negotiations with the union stood in terms of ‘removing the boycott’, Clare said both the states and the unions know how important the proposed reforms are.
“In fact, many of the reforms have come at the recommendation of states, of territories and of the union,” he added.
“In particular, things like catch-up tutoring, really practical, basic, important reforms that make sure that if a child falls behind when they’re little, they have the support that they need to catch up and then to keep up.”
Clare disagrees "fundamentally" with the union's arguments.
Research fellow Trisha Jha from think tank The Centre for Independent Studies has warned policymakers of the risk of magnifying inequality across Australian schools if pricey small-group tutoring initiatives are baked into the funding agreements.
According to Jha, without ensuring every school has the right supports and structures in place to implement the sessions effectively, the initiative won’t move the needle on learning outcomes despite its ‘billion-dollar price tag’.
Earlier this year, an evaluation report found NSW schools spent $250 million delivering the state’s ‘COVID Intensive’ tutoring program in 2022, but with no measurable impact on students’ academic achievement or attendance to show for it.
Similarly, in June, Victoria’s Auditor-General’s Office tabled a report detailing the lack of effectiveness blighting the state’s $1.2 billion tutoring scheme.
Reiterating the well-worn point that he won’t be offering up the additional cash without strings, Clare noted the deal amounted to “the biggest extra investment in public schools by the Commonwealth Government, ever”.
“But it’s not a blank cheque. It’s got to be tied to these practical reforms to make a difference for our children.”
Today Clare introduced legislation to lock in a floor of 20 per cent Commonwealth funding for public schools across Australia.
The AEU has slammed the move as ‘premature’.
“…it is beyond belief that the Albanese Government is setting this floor at the previous Coalition Government’s 20 per cent cap,” Haythorpe said.
Clare said the legislation would enable the Federal Government to “ratchet up” funding for public schools and turn around the nation’s declining Year 12 retention rates.
“The crux of this is that at the moment the percentage of young people finishing high school’s going backwards, and it’s particularly happening in our public schools,” he said on the Today show.
“Seven or eight years ago, 83 per cent of students finished high school, now it’s dropped to 73 per cent, and if we’re going to fix that, we’ve got to go all the way back to the start when kids are really young when they’re starting primary school, identify children who are starting behind or falling behind and make sure that we intervene with practical reforms…”
The union maintains there has been no “genuine opportunity” for consultation on the draft legislation.
Greens spokesperson on Primary and Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne, has also criticised Clare’s deal.
Today she noted that independent fact checkers had labelled Clare’s ‘full funding’ claims as misleading.
“Why does Labor always check their homework with Peter Dutton before submitting it? If Labor is doing a dodgy deal with the Coalition to ram through a bill that keeps public schools underfunded, they should come clean,” she argued.
Public schools cannot be “left to scrape by on less than the bare minimum”, Allman-Payne implored.
“It’s time for the Government to join with the Greens and state Labor premiers to lock in full funding for public schools, and lock out the Liberals.”
