School funding caught in old shemozzle, not driven by evidence

With an election due in six months, Morrison, was anxious to remove any distractions, so in an act of appeasement announced additional funding for the non-government sector most of which went to Catholic schools thus largely undoing the achievements of the 2017 amendments.

Politics does not drive improved education outcomes. Picture Shutterstock

In the run up to the May 2019 election the new head of the National Catholic Education Commission, the just retired Labor senator Jacinta Collins, not satisfied with the several extra billion dollars Catholic sector had extricated from the vulnerable Morrison government, started campaigning for more for capital works funding.

The primary issue then, as always with the Catholic school sector, was more public funding.

The challenge the Catholic sector has long faced is increasing competition from the independent sector as the latest figures in student growth numbers highlight.

From 2019 to 2023, independent school enrolments grew by 14.1 per cent or 82,319 students compared to an increase of 0.7 per cent students for state schools and 4.8 per cent for Catholic schools.

And let's not let the Coalition off the hook. They failed to stick to their 2017 school funding reforms.

Nor did the Morrison government honour its 2019 election promise to faith schools to introduce religious freedom legislation hence the present standoff in Federal Parliament.

The Coalition has no right at present to take the high moral ground on this issue.

Meanwhile, all these developments combined with the latest actions by the current Albanese government means school funding has returned to the same confused shemozzle based more on political bargaining and with spending more regardless of the evidence as to what really drives improved education performance.