The Greens say Labor's Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) locks in public school underfunding for a decade and fails to provide a coherent roadmap to deliver on its objectives.
The BFSA, which replaces the expiring National Schools Reform Agreement, would commit the Commonwealth to funding only 22.5% of public school resourcing for most states and territories by 2029, leaving another generation of public school kids and parents behind.
And the agreement's enabling initiatives, to which Commonwealth funding is tied, would ramp up student surveillance and testing, but are all but silent on student wellbeing and inclusion and don't address the growing divide between the overfunded private system and the neglected public system.
As stated by Greens spokesperson on Primary & Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
"This is not a plan for full funding. This is a plan to lock in underfunding for another decade, ensuring another entire generation of public school kids misses out on the education they deserve.
"Labor claims that if all the states and territories sign up to its plan they'll be able to deliver 'full funding' to public schools by 2029. This is plainly untrue.
"For one thing, the Gonski review never promised 'full funding' - it promised enough funding to get 80% of kids in a school up to the minimum NAPLAN standard. And for another, with the exception of the ACT, every state and territory is claiming a 4% deduction for non-school expenditure from their funding contribution.
"Labor has refused to commit to unwinding these dodgy Morrison-era deals despite being given multiple opportunities to do so.
"The BFSA reforms would require states and territories to do more surveillance, more monitoring and more testing. It does nothing to fundamentally reform our outdated education model, make schools more inclusive or reverse the growing inequities between the public and private systems.
"The Education Minister is waving the mission accomplished flag while teachers are fleeing the system, student disengagement and school can't/school refusal is rising and cashed-up private schools draw more and more kids out of the public system.
"Even state Labor education ministers are begging Federal Labor to properly fund public schools, because they know that this is a make or break moment for the future of public schooling in this country.
"Labor needs to up the Commonwealth share of funding to a minimum of 25% in every state and territory, deliver 100% SRS funding to all public schools at the start of the BFSA in January 2025, and immediately end the overfunding of wealthy private schools that bank billions in public handouts every year."
