Budget betrays public school students

09 May 2007
By Maree O'Halloran
NSW Teachers Federation President

Public school and TAFE College students are betrayed in Peter Costello's twelfth budget which provides no real increase in funding to public education. The federal government's education priorities are completely wrong and deliberately misguided.

With a record surplus, the federal government has chosen to bypass the 2.3 million students in public schools and the 1.3 million in TAFE Colleges across Australia. Only public education is open and available to all students regardless of family background, faith and level of income.

Over the next five years public schools will only receive an increase of $300 million. Private schools will be given almost six times as much - $1.7 billion. The Federal Coalition Government has exponentially increased per student funding to private schools since 1996.

For every one dollar of direct federal recurrent expenditure per public school student, the federal government spent the following on a private school student:

1996	$1.00 per public school student	$3.50 per private school student
2001-4	$1.00	$4.00
2005-8	$1.00	$5.00
2009-12	$1.00	approx $6.00

These increases are clear policy directions not enrolment changes.

Public schools need an extra $2.9 billion in recurrent annual funding from federal and state governments (MCEETYA report). The federal government has ignored this shortfall and the problems arising from chronic under funding. Early childhood has also missed out in this budget. There are also no increases for TAFE.

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