Regional Victoria's public schools outspent by two elite private schools

The Australian Education Union (AEU) released a report on Friday, February 23, 2024, showing private schools spent nearly 2.5 times what public schools did per student on capital works. The government would need to spend an extra $31.8 billion on public schools to correct the imbalance.

The report said two Sydney private schools - Loreto Normanhurst and Barker College - with a total enrolment of 3700 pupils, were building facilities costing $320 million.

Data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority showed regional Victoria's 651 public schools - catering to more than 150,000 students - spent just under $314 million on capital works in 2021.

The AEU report found five elite schools - including Loreto Mandeville Hall and Caulfield Grammar in Melbourne - spent more than $175 million on facilities in 2021 alone, an investment of $17,000 per student.

This was eight times more than regional Victorian public schools spent per student despite Victoria being the most generous state in Australia for capital works spending on regional public schools in 2021.

The education union released its report as state and federal education ministers met in Melbourne to hammer out a new nationwide school funding agreement.

The report criticised the "steadily deteriorating" state of Australia's public school infrastructure, slamming the Commonwealth Government as "derelict in its duty" and arguing the government "systematically favours capital investment in private schools".

"The Commonwealth has a decade-long $1.9 billion non-government schools Capital Grants Program, which has provided $1.25 billion to private schools since 2017," the report said.

It said the government had "abandoned public schools" over the same period. A newly introduced $216 million School Upgrade Fund would be the first Commonwealth capital works program for public schools in more than a decade.

It noted the $175 million spent by the five elite private schools in 2021 eclipsed the total capital works expenditure for more than 50 per cent of the public schools in Australia.

Those five schools spent more on facilities than 3372 schools, outspending them 82 to one on a per student basis.

The report also found in 2021 one private school - Sydney's Cranbrook School - spent more on capital works ($63.48 million) than all the public schools in Tasmania and the Northern Territory combined.

While "systemic favouritism" for capital grants was part of the problem, the report also said private schools were flush with cash from their recurrent government funding, allowing them to reallocate surplus funds to build new pools, gyms and auditoriums.

AEU president Correna Haythorpe said public schools rarely received enough funding to cover operations, let alone divert cash to building projects.

"Only 1.3 per cent of public schools are fully funded compared to 98 per cent of private schools and that inequity in recurrent funding is contributing to an unacceptable $30 billion divide in spending on new and upgraded schools," Ms Haythorpe said.

From 2019 to 2021, Australia's public schools managed to divert $20 million of recurrent funding into capital projects while Independent schools reallocated $1.5 billion and Catholic schools shifted $1 billion into building projects.

The AEU said the first step to "bridging the divide" between the sectors was an immediate $1.25 billion investment in public school capital works across Australia, along with a permanent index fund of $350 million per year.

"That will make up for the fact there's been no ongoing capital funding from the Commonwealth since the Coalition axed it in 2017," Ms Haythorpe said.