Contrary to claims by the Cook Government, the landmark bilateral agreement signed by the State and Commonwealth governments today will still leave public students in Western Australia underfunded.
The agreement between the Cook and Albanese government does not address the 4% depreciation clause that allows state and territory governments to account for non-school costs, such as school transport, kindergarten expenditure, regulatory bodies and capital depreciation as part of the state Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) share.
"For Western Australia, this clause will leave state schools underfunded by $1.78 billion across the next five years and yet, there is an urgent need for this funding due to the increasing needs of the student population" said Matthew Jarman, President SSTUWA.
"Western Australia has a high level of need, with state schools educating more than twice the number of students from low Socio-Educational Advantage backgrounds and 2.7 times the number of First Nations students," he said.
"The 4% clause was introduced in 2018 by the Coalition Government as part of the last round of bilateral agreements and until that time, these costs were never intended to be counted as part of the SRS, in fact, they were explicitly excluded from the SRS when it was devised" said Correna Haythorpe Federal President AEU.
The use of the 4% additional allowance removes $244 million in funding from classrooms in 2024, an amount that will continue to rise year on year to $238.8 million by 2028 and will account for a total of $1.32 billion loss in funding. At the same time, private schools in the state will continue to be overfunded by a total of $201.7 million over the next five years.
Full funding is the only way to ensure every child gets the support they need to succeed and that teachers have the resources that they need to do their jobs well.
While the 4% depreciation clause remains as part of the bilateral agreement, there is not a true commitment to ensuring that all schools are fully funded at 100% of the SRS level. This must be addressed by the Albanese Government as a priority matter rather than facilitating agreements that allow for the diversion of funds from public schools.
