Membership of Committee
Members
Senator George Campbell |
ALP, New South Wales |
Chair |
Senator John Tierney* |
LP, New South Wales |
Deputy Chair |
Senator Guy Barnett |
LP, Tasmania |
|
Senator Kim Carr |
ALP, Victoria |
|
Senator Trish Crossin |
ALP, Northern Territory |
|
Senator Natasha Stott Despoja |
AD, South Australia |
|
Sub-Committee for inquiry into Commonwealth Funding for Schools
Senator Kim Carr |
ALP, Victoria |
Chair |
Senator David Johnston |
LP, Western Australia |
Deputy Chair |
Senator Lyn Allison |
AD, Victoria |
|
Senator Patricia Crossin |
ALP, Northern Territory |
|
* Senator Johnston substituted for Senator Tierney for the inquiry into Commonwealth funding for schools
Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education
References Committee Secretariat
Suite SG52
The Senate
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: 02 6277 3520
Fax: 02 6277 5706
E-mail: eet.sen@aph.gov.au
Internet: www.aph.gov.au/senate_employment
Terms of Reference
The principles of the Governments schools funding package and the effect of these principles on:
(a) the capacity of all schools to meet current and future school needs and to achieve the Adelaide Declaration (1999) on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century;
(b) the role and responsibility of the Australian Government, in partnership with state and territory governments, for quality and equity in public funding for government and non-government schools across Australia and for promoting efficiency and effectiveness in the allocation of public funds for schooling, including effects on enrolment trends in the government and non-government sectors;
(c) the effectiveness of accountability arrangements for state, territory and Federal governments funding of government and non-government schools; and
(d) the application of the framework of principles for the funding of schools that has been endorsed by state and territory governments through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1 page 17
The
committee recommends that the Howard Government should accept responsibility
for resolving the divisiveness its school funding decisions have generated, and
that the Commonwealth should demonstrate leadership in developing a new
national consensus on school funding, with a renewed focus on equity and a
determination to raise the quality of education in schools that are poorly
resourced to deal with under-achieving students.
Recommendation 2 page 17
The committee recommends that the
Australian Government accepts its responsibility for the support of high
quality public school systems as a national priority, including the endorsement
of the MCEETYA principles for schools resourcing.
Recommendation 3 page 38
The committee recommends that the Commonwealth note the
overwhelming evidence put before the inquiry on the flawed nature of its
funding arrangements for non-government schools, including:
-
failure to take
into account the total resources available to a non-government school in
assessing relative need for funding;
-
adoption of a
funding scale that has provided the largest increases in funding to
non-government schools that were already operating well above the resource
standards in government schools; and
-
creation of instability
and insecurity in the post 2008 funding for the 50 per cent of non-government
schools that are in one of the two funding maintained categories for the
2005-2008 quadrennium, including 60 per cent of schools in Catholic systems.
Recommendation 4 page 39
The committee recommends that the SES non-government school
funding model should be linked to the economic capacity of school communities,
modified to include sources of private income including fees and linked to the
educational needs of each school and its students.
Recommendation 5 page 50
The committee recommends that the Commonwealth, through
MCEETYA, should exercise its responsibility to ensure that financial data
regarding school income and expenditure, whether on an aggregated or
disaggregated basis, is provided and publicly presented and reported in a
standard format, using a single accounting basis and reporting period. In the case of non-government schools, this
data, both aggregated and disaggregated to the school level, should be provided
to the Commonwealth in a standard format on an annual basis, and tabled in the
Parliament. Provision of full financial
information in this manner should be a condition for receipt of recurrent
funding.
Recommendation 6 page 50
The committee recommends that accountability provisions
regarding non-government schools should be strengthened to require reporting by
schools on a range of matters including:
-
enrolment of
students with disabilities;
-
enrolment of
Indigenous students;
-
admission and
exclusion policies;
Recommendation 7 page 60
The committee recommends that, pending discussions with
state and territory governments through normal MCEETYA processes, the
Government should be mindful of the rights of states and territories to
legislative and administrative autonomy with regard to the operation of
schools. The Government should not use
school funding legislation as a vehicle to impose on the states and territories
policies and practices that would normally be the subject of agreement through
MCEETYA.