A Thousand Thoughts

One of the complicated things I’ve learned during the Free2Homeschool campaign is about something called the National School Reform Agreement. Now, I’m not part of any school, and my kids don’t get any government funding, so why does it matter to me? It turns out it’s relevant, and it goes like this.

The National School Reform Agreement is a contractual arrangement made under federal education legislation, the Australian Education Act 2013 (Cth). In that Act, the Commonwealth commits to providing funding for education to each state and territory, while the states/territories are responsible for the rest of the funding, and for actually delivering the education. This is called ‘recurrent funding’, and this is what everyone gets annually:

* State schools: 20% funding from Cth, 80% funding from State/Territory

* Non-Government schools: 80% funding from Cth, 20% funding from State/Territory (plus parents’ fees)

* Home education: nothing from either (just saying)

For the purpose of this post, it’s hard to compare state and non-state funding, but it is apportioned by how much is needed to enable schools to function. However, Queensland’s state education system does not actually get 100% of that 20% federal funding entitlement*. Nor do the majority of states/territories. And that actually matters quite a lot.

This little Agreement is actually quite a big stick in the hands of the federal government. That’s because it sets out a raft of ‘national policy initiatives’ that each state or territory is required to commit to, in return for that recurrent funding I just mentioned above. What are these national policy initiatives, you ask? They’re things that states are obligated to address in state based reforms (read: legislation and policy). Things like:

– The Australian Curriculum
– Improving data, and data collection
– Improving NAPLAN outcomes
– Improving student wellbeing, and somehow measure it
– Demonstrating active steps to address inequity for ‘priority cohort’ groups, which includes First Nations students and students with disabilities.
– Addressing stressed out teachers’ needs and teacher shortages.

“The implementation of these national policy initiatives as outlined in Schedule B is a condition of Commonwealth funding to States and Territories under section 22(2) of the Act.” That’s from the Agreement.

Carrot, stick.

On Friday, an Education Ministers’ Meeting was held in Perth, and our Minister for Education, Di Farmer, advocated for the Commonwealth to provide the full 20% of the promised funding (and actually go beyond that), but the answer was no.

More money may not fix all the problems, but it might help.

Some of the ideas beneath the initiatives have merit – especially better supporting teachers and kids in schools and making education work for them. But here’s the issue. Everyone’s struggling, and while opinions vary about the wisdom of how the school system works, what is clear is that the states are asking for the full quota of federal funding to help achieve the initiatives and these outcomes, and the Commonwealth is just saying no. Try harder.

Data provided by the Australian Education Union ‘For Every Child’ campaign** shows the (obvious) link between funding and teacher wellbeing.

The irony. The Commonwealth could help Queensland further the national policy initiatives of the NSRA, but they simply won’t.

We know many families have come to homeschooling because school didn’t work – not enough resources, not enough time and funding to support kids who needed it. We know there’s been a federal inquiry into School Refusal, and that the federal government has largely handballed the response to that back to the states.

If you look at the Queensland Department of Education submission to the Productivity Commission inquiry into the NSRA, you’ll see them saying hey this is really not a good way of going about things, it’s really not going to do what you’re trying to do with those national policy initiatives … kind of like what we’ve been saying now to the Department of Education about home education.

My kids aren’t in the school system but I sure do want it to work better, because I want happy, safe, meaningful education for every kid in Queensland.

* Schooling Resource Standard – see National School Reform Agreement information on the Australian Government Department of Education website.

** See For Every Child Australia

Hilary