Equitable and sustainable funding for every school

A fair and consistent way to distribute government funding

These reforms represent a once in a generation chance to improve Australian school funding arrangements and to introduce a sustainable new evidence‑based approach.

For the first time, government and non‑government schools will be funded on a consistent basis, with the Commonwealth adopting the new Schooling Resource Standard for all recurrent funding to schools. The States and Territories will implement needs‑based funding models consistent with the Schooling Resource Standard, but will be able to tailor their models to best address local needs.

Funding for disadvantage will now be fully publicly funded for both government and non‑government schools. Families choosing non‑government schools will still be required to contribute to the base cost of funding their school, consistent with current arrangements.

These reforms will simplify our current funding arrangements and deliver consistent and transparent funding allocations for all schools and sectors.

Australian Government and State Government net recurrent funding as a proportion of all government recurrent funding, 2009

Funding certainty into the future

These reforms deliver greater certainty for States, systems and schools by:

replacing $3 billion over six years from 2014‑15 in time limited National Partnership funding with ongoing recurrent funding targeted where it is needed;
guaranteeing Commonwealth indexation of 4.7 per cent and State indexation of 3 per cent to take all schools towards the Schooling Resource Standard, replacing the old indexation arrangements where Commonwealth funding is tied to State funding and automatically goes down when States reduce their education spending; and
ending historical sector specific funding arrangements — so that all schools are given consistent funding according to the needs of their students, not whether they are government or non‑government schools.