South Australia owes public school students $1.6 billion
Public school funding in Australia is split between federal and state governments. The funding a school receives is based on the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), which is an exact dollar figure calculated per student.
The SRS is considered the minimum amount needed by a school to meet a student's educational needs. The total amount of funding a school receives is based on the number of students enrolled at the school.
This funding is reserved for the school to cover the needs of the students while they are at school. It includes teachers' salaries and materials. It does not include out-of-school costs such as public transport. It should not include costs which can be attributed to any other part of the state's budget. The state should not expect a school to sacrifice the money it needs so that the state can cover other public costs. The state already has a budget for that.
Once the total SRS dollar figure is established for a school, the federal and state governments pay their respective percentage shares. For private schools, the federal government pays 80% of the SRS and the state government makes up the remaining 20%. For public schools, it is reversed. The state government is expected to pay 80% of the SRS and the federal government makes up the remaining 20%.
What this percentage split between public and private schools has led to over the last 12 years is that private schools are overfunded and public schools are severely underfunded.
It is important to note that public schools are underfunded because of state governments. This is no more apparent than in South Australia.
The federal government has fulfilled its obligation to public schools every year by paying 20% of the SRS. The federal government has also fulfilled its obligation to private schools, paying 80% of their SRS.
The public funding shortfall comes from the South Australian government. This is a choice, not an error. Private schools are overfunded because the state government pays 21%-23% of their SRS every year. The state government is only obligated to pay 20% , yet pays more than this every year for absolutely no reason. This equates to roughly $40 million in taxes. Private schools in South Australia receive about 101-103% of their SRS entitlement.
By contrast, only 1.3% of public schools in the whole country receive 100% of the SRS entitlement owed to them. In South Australia, 0% of public schools receive their full entitlement. Not one public school in South Australia has ever received its full public funding.
Public funding is meant for public schools. Our taxes are collected to fund public services and public infrastructure. This includes public schools. It does not include private schools. The revenue collected by private schools in the form of exorbitant enrolment fees should be spent on the school and the students' education.
Instead, private schools draw on funding from the federal government, the state government, private donations and additional parent contributions. Where is all that money going?
And where is the money that is supposed to be going to public schools?
The South Australian Government knows the strict SRS dollar figure every student is entitled to and chooses to underfund public schools whilst overfunding private schools every year.
Instead of paying 80% of the SRS to public schools, the South Australian Government commits to paying 75% instead. Not only does this short-change every single public school student entitled to the full SRS amount, it also short-changes the rest of the state. This is because the state government includes a 4% calculation within that 75% promise which it never pays.
South Australia has had a 4% provision loophole included in its funding to public schools since 2018. It was introduced under the Morrison Government and is little more than a cheap accounting trick intended to deny public school students their minimum financial entitlement whilst allowing the state to keep that money.
The SRS is supposed to cover the costs of the school – things the school pays for that are used inside the school.
The 4% provision South Australia includes in its SRS is for "school transport" and "capital depreciation" and other indirect school-related expenses. By including things like public transport in the SRS , the state has been able to get away with shaving 4% off its expenditure because public transport costs are already included in other parts of the state's budget.
This equates to about $150-$200 million that stays in the state's treasury that should be going to public school students. That's about $1.6 billion over eight years.
According to the Australian Schools Directory, there are currently 605 public schools and 200 private schools in South Australia.
In 2024, the Australian Education Union found that all public schools in South Australia were underfunded. This has been the case for 12 years, but came to light in 2024 when 508 public schools were finally surveyed about the impacts of the shortfall.
The results found that in 2024 alone, South Australian public schools were underfunded by $337 million, whilst South Australian private schools were overfunded by $64.2 million.
In 2023, when Prince Alfred College received $7.8 million in funding from the federal government, did the school really need another $2 million from the South Australian Government? Did Scotch College, which received $7.1 million in federal funding the same year, need another $1.4 million in state funding too?
In 2024, did the South Australian Government really need to commit $13 million to capital works for private schools when 98% of public schools that year didn't have enough money to pay their teachers? Almost all public school principals surveyed in South Australia said they were forced to combine classes due to staff shortages. One third of them said they had run classes without a teacher.
Did the South Australian Government need to allocate millions in funding to private school building projects when there are public schools that haven't been upgraded since the 1970s?
These grants were awarded to private school capital works. One of the them was a $2.6 million grant that went to Our Lady of Grace for a new building with six classrooms. Another was a $2.3 million grant given to Dominican School to restore its heritage-listed convent building.
In February this year, Liberal MP Ashton Hurn promised to double the public funding given to private school infrastructure and capital works if elected, pledging to increase the budget reserved for their buildings by $12.7 million a year.
For 12 consecutive years, the South Australian government has officially set its target for public school funding at 75% of the SRS. It is supposed to pay 80%. This is money that comes from taxpayers and it is being diverted away from public school students to pay for privately-owned, privately-funded buildings.
The money owed to every single public school student in this state comes to about $2,000 per student, per year. This doesn't include the interest that should be paid on top of a deficit that only grows every year.
To have factored in a 4% shortfall every year since 2018 is a debt that should be tallied with interest. Based only on this loophole, the state owes public schools $1.6 billion. At a 5% interest rate, that's $80 million a year. That's $6.7 million a month. That is how much the penalty should be for every month the state refuses to pay its debt.
That is money owed to public school students. That is money owed to their teachers and their principals. That is money that has been calculated on a per-student-basis.
The state owes them that money and the state has an obligation to pay it back.
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