Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
Last week, Victoria finally signed a school funding deal with the federal government. This means Victorian public schools now have a timeline to reach 100% of the needs-based funding benchmark that grew out of the 2011 Gonski review.
The agreement follows a significant delay as all other Australian states and territories had signed long-term funding agreements by mid 2025.
The Albanese government says the Victorian development puts “every public school in the country on a path to full and fair funding”.
Here’s what the agreements really mean for school funding.
How do funding agreements work?
By 2034 at the latest, every public school system in Australia should be funded at 100% of the schooling resource standard. This is the measure used to estimate the government funding required to meet students’ educational needs.
Under the current school funding agreements, the Commonwealth will provide 25% of the resource standard for public schools, with states and territories to provide 75%. The Northern Territory has a different 40-60 funding split.
This is a big achievement. The schooling resource standard came out of the Gonski Review into school funding. But it’s taken nearly 15 years for every state and territory to agree to fund its public school sector to that level.
The deals are worth an estimated A$16.5 billion in extra federal funding for public schools over the next decade, and around $50 billion more in the decade after.
Read more:
Underfunded? Overfunded? How school funding works in Australia
The journey will be a long haul
But there’s a long wait until all public school systems are fully funded.
In New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, funding won’t reach 100% until 2034. So most current students will never attend fully funded schools.
Other jurisdictions get there faster. Public school sectors in the ACT, Western Australia and Tasmania are now fully funded, while those in the Northern Territory are due to get there by 2029.
Victoria currently funds 70.43% of the standard for its public schools and the Commonwealth 20%, a total of 90.43%. The state has agreed to lift its share to 75% by 2031, with provision to bring that forward to 2029 if its budget allows.
The deal is heavily back-ended, and the Commonwealth’s share will not reach 25% until 2034. Victoria’s public schools will not reach 100% until then.
What about private schools?
In contrast, non-government schools nationally are already funded at or above their schooling resource standard entitlement on average, or are transitioning to it.
In the NT, full funding for non-government schools will be reached by 2029.
This means we will have had two underfunded generations
The practical consequences of the long wait are serious for two generations of public school students.
A child who started school in 2012, just after the Gonski report, finished Year 12 in 2024. For most public school students of that generation, every year of schooling was spent in a system funded below the schooling resource standard.
A child who started school in 2022 will reach Year 12 in 2034, the year the current funding agreement ends and public schools across the country will, on paper, be fully funded.
At the same time, inequalities in our schooling systems are growing.
Education Minister Jason Clare has said the reading gap between eight-year-olds from poor and wealthy families has doubled over the past 15 years.
The gap widens through school. Analysis from the Mitchell Institute shows by Year 9, students whose parents have a bachelor’s degree or above are now six years and eight months ahead in reading of those whose parents didn’t finish school, up from six years in 2023.
So, is school funding now ‘fixed’?
For most states, the answer is no.
The agreements run until the end of 2034, across several federal and state elections, starting with Victoria’s on November 28. They will only deliver full funding if they survive political churn and budget pressure.
Back-ended deals are especially fragile, and we have been here before. Under the original Gonski agreements, about two-thirds of the additional funding was due in the fifth and sixth years, but the incoming Coalition government did not retain those funding commitments.
States must also find their share in tight budgets. Victoria says it will try to bring its own share forward to 2029 if it can.
What needs to happen next?
A lot needs to happen before 2034, but four things stand out.
First, governments need to look beyond recurrent funding and make sure school buildings and facilities are up to scratch. Major capital expenditure sits outside the scope of the schooling resource standard. As the ABC reported, some Victorian public schools are struggling to afford basic maintenance.
Second, the agreements need a genuine equity target. National targets focus on NAPLAN results trending up for priority equity groups. There is no target requiring the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students to close, so average results could improve while inequality widens.
Third, how the money is used matters. The agreements link funding to reforms including phonics checks, small-group tutoring and “evidence-based teaching”. But it’s important teachers and school leaders still have room to exercise professional judgement and adapt to suit student needs.
Finally, time matters. Schools in our biggest states face another eight years of waiting to reach a funding benchmark first proposed in 2011. The federal government could bring its 25% share forward, and states could lift their contributions sooner. Accelerating the timetable would help students in public schools now, not those in a tenuous future.
Glenn Savage receives funding from the Australian Research Council.