New laws will enable a more accurate estimation of the capacity of families to contribute to the cost of sending their children to a non-government school.
The more targeted and accurate direct measure of income will make school funding more equitable by ensuring more funding flows to the schools that need it most.
To ensure Australian families will have choice and equity in education the Australian Government will provide additional funding to 2029 of:
- $1.2 billion for the Choice and Affordability Fund;
- $3.4 billion for the Direct Measure of Income and;
- $200 million to provide schools with flexibility while converting to optimal census data.
Minister for Education Dan Tehan said the new method was recommended by the National School Resourcing Board's Review of the socio-economic status score.
"Commonwealth funding for non-government schools will be linked to parental income from 2020 using improved data collection and analysis that will ensure non-government school funding is targeted at the students who need it most," Mr Tehan said.
"Schools will automatically receive the most beneficial capacity to contribute settings for 2020 and 2021 from either their 2011 or 2016 Census Socio-economic Status (SES) score or their new Direct Measure of Income (DMI) score.
"Non-government school sectors will have until 2029 to fully transition to the direct measure of income method, ensuring they are fully able to factor this change across their operations.
To further assist the transition:
- Under the Choice and Affordability Fund, the state-based Catholic Education Commissions and Associations of Independent Schools will flexibly administer the fund, including quarantining a percentage of funding that will flow directly to regional and remote schools.
- A robust review process will be established by July 2020 to address unexpected or unique circumstances affecting the financial capacity of a school's community.
- Authorised by The Hon Dan Tehan MP, Liberal Party of Australia, Parliament House, Canberra
- The National School Resourcing Board will examine the Schooling Resourcing Standard (SRS) loadings as they impact students and schools in regional Australia.
I will be taking the Terms of Reference for this work to the next COAG Education Council. The review will commence by June.
Further work will be undertaken in consultation with the ABS and the sector to investigate what additional data could be used to further refine how the capacity to contribute is calculated.
