In housing and education, Australia is entrenching inequality

The Productivity Commission (PC)’s new interim report on education and the performance of our systems as a result of additional funding has again demonstrated just how poorly public education is faring in resource allocation.

The PC’s chart on school funding between 2011 and 2020 shows that public schools have enjoyed only a modest real increase in funding over the decade, compared to substantial increases in real funding for Catholic and independent schools. Catholic school funding per student has now overtaken that of public schools, and independent schools have dramatically increased funding per student to levels far above that of public schools.

The disparity was primarily driven by big increases in Commonwealth funding for Catholic and independent schools, while other funding sources, including state government funding, stayed broadly the same. While public schools had only a relatively small increase in Commonwealth funding, both Catholic and independent schools were given substantially greater Commonwealth funding.