Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to the latest analysis released by Save Our Schools this morning, which finds that over the last decade, government funding for private schools increased by $3,338 per student, adjusted for inflation, compared to $703 per student for public schools.
Senator Faruqi said:
“The systemic underfunding of our public schools and corresponding overfunding of private schools is a national disgrace.
“Special deals such as the Liberals’ $1.2 billion so-called ‘Choice and Affordability’ slush fund for private schools have only worsened decades of systemic favouritism.
“Public schools are trying their best to navigate the impacts of Covid, inadequate and crumbling infrastructure, and provide suitable educational resourcing for students, all while enrolments tick up and funding remains stubbornly low.
“The Coalition and Labor are on a unity ticket so far as unfair, outrageous private school funding is concerned.
“The Greens are taking to the federal election a fully-costed plan to invest $32 billion in our public schools over the next decade and achieve 100% funding of the Schooling Resource Standard for public schools by 2023.”
Greens Election Policy: https://greens.org.au/campaigns/fully-funded-public-schools