Christian Schools Australia welcomes the release of the Gonski Report and congratulates the Review Panel and the Government, for a report that met the promise of being sector blind, and genuinely tackles the challenges of improving educational standards for the whole Australian community.

The Report is grounded in good research, complex and detailed, and it is a good thing that the Government has initiated a deliberately open consultation process. We will fully participate in that process.

Response of Christian Schools Australia to some of the major provisions:

Disability

The Review has adopted the submission of CSA and others, that funding for disadvantaged students should follow the child, irrespective of sector or system. We are over the moon that this will, finally, mean Christian schools will better be able to cater for students with disability and other forms of disadvantage. This will over time broaden the genuine choice for parents of these students.

Resource Standard

The Report recommends that funding for all students should in the future be based on a Schooling Resource Standard. This will replace the AGSRC. The Standard would be based on the amount required in reference schools for all of their students to achieve high educational outcomes. The way this is calculated will be the subject of much further work and discussion. However our initial response is that this is a welcome improvement on the current basis of funding. The Review Report indicates that the 2009 value of the Standard would be approximately $8,000 primary and $10,500 secondary before loadings. Additional funding in the form of loadings would be applied for disadvantaged students to arrive at a school's notional resource allocation.

This base plus loading model is in line with the submission of CSA to the Gonski Committee.

School funding

The funding of non government schools would relate to the Resource Standard, and be reduced by its 'anticipated private funding', in other words the expected fee income, based on the Socio-Economic-Status of the school community. The SES model would, over time, be amended as further research is done. This is one of those matters into which we expect to have an energetic input.

The base level of funding (basic entitlement) would be set at 20-25 percent for the highest SES schools (those serving the richest communities). Schools serving the poorest communities (the lowest SES) would receive 90 percent of the Resource Standard plus loadings.

This is of course very similar to the current arrangements, in effect replacing the AGSRC with the new Resource Standard plays loadings for disadvantage. The targeted funding system as it is currently constructed would be absorbed into the loading system. Some groups may raise concerns about the end if the present targeted funding arrangements, however we believe the loadings system should be more efficient, and provide greater certainty for students, parents and schools. It is in line with our submission.

On the surface the proposal should be welcomed by schools that seek to be accessible and affordable, such as CSA members. This system is in theory transparent, based on fair criteria, and equitable, and our initial response is to welcome it.

Fully funded schools

The Review Panel has adopted a version of CSA's submission for fully publicly funded schools, to serve communities or students with identified need. This is a very exciting recommendation and should provide great opportunities for Christian Schools to expand the way they serve disadvantaged communities or groups of students.

Increased funding

The Gonski Review has recommended that Governments (state, territory and federal) fund the new system with an additional $ 5 billion into education. This level of expenditure will be essential to ensure the government's promise that no school would lose a dollar per student. It will also be a minimum to ensure that the proposals for equity and fairness.

Capital funding

The Report foreshadows a possible shakeup of capital funding, arguing for a more planned process for new school development.  It suggests two streams: a Schools Growth Fund for new schools and a Schools Infrastructure grants programme - this largely represents new Commonwealth capital funding for State schools.  

The implementation will be critical, to ensure that all schools have equal opportunities to access these funds.  We will be particularly arguing against the possibility that states could, for example, skew the Growth Fund programme by imposing 'new schools policy' style constraints.  

Summary 

In brief summary there is much to commend the approach recommended by the Gonski Review, although much now depends on the further modeling and implementation. We thank the committee for listening carefully to the concerns of CSA and are delighted to see some of our ideas picked up in the final report.

Link:  Your School, Our Future (Government site)

CSA will be providing more analysis in the coming days.