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I can only imagine there is an election about somewhere, as a regular old chestnut is appearing again.  School Funding, the facts, and the spin.

Very rarely do the facts appear in the public news, it juts isn’t as interesting as the spin.

But I prefer to see the real figures, not imaginary ones.

I just read an article where this was said:

Mr Gavrielatos says a major overhaul of the school funding system is needed.

He says in the 10-year period to 2008, independent private schools have had increases in government funding of 112 per cent, while public schools have had increases of 67 per cent.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/08/3186152.htm

And I wondered about the accuracy of those figures.

So the best place to start was the Australian Productivity Commission, and the review of Government Service Provisions.

This gave me the following figures, for the years 2004 to 2008 using  2008 dollar values.

Average Government Spend per Student in Government Schools (2007-08 $)
	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT	Aust
2004	$12,305	$11,052	$11,278	$12,421	$12,104	$11,692	$14,085	$17,636	$11,878
2005	$12,503	$11,083	$11,916	$13,781	$12,345	$12,009	$14,171	$17,359	$12,240
2006	$12,323	$11,308	$12,002	$13,617	$12,436	$12,468	$14,435	$18,191	$12,269
2007	$12,287	$11,191	$12,091	$14,691	$12,317	$12,469	$14,565	$17,632	$12,340
2008	$12,348	$11,449	$12,413	$15,811	$12,518	$12,442	$16,205	$18,221	$12,651
Average Government Spend per Student in Non-Government Schools (2007-08 $)
	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT	Aust
2004	$6,699	$5,942	$7,180	$6,861	$6,080	$6,596	$6,099	$10,262	$6,565
2005	$7,055	$6,195	$7,526	$6,975	$6,527	$7,005	$5,985	$9,211	$6,857
2006	$6,839	$6,083	$7,884	$6,921	$6,321	$6,863	$6,088	$10,269	$6,809
2007	$6,893	$6,028	$6,966	$6,787	$6,416	$6,791	$6,020	$10,137	$6,641
2008	$6,771	$6,037	$6,778	$6,801	$6,335	$6,798	$5,884	$8,233	$6,546

From these figures we can see that spending per student has increased slightly in real terms for Government Schools by 6%, but has actually reduced very slightly for the Independent Non Government schools.

A similar report from 2005 with figures for 2001 to 2005 in 2005 $’s showed these figures:

Government schools (2004-05 $ per student)
	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT	Aust
2000-01	$9,729	$8,858	$9,252	$10,083	$9,935	$9,849	$10,442	$15,715	$9,576
2001-02	$10,108	$9,123	$9,506	$10,227	$10,074	$10,095	$10,606	$17,188	$9,866
2002-03	$10,855	$9,557	$9,669	$10,601	$10,097	$10,230	$11,264	$15,748	$10,283
2003-04	$10,742	$9,693	$9,925	$10,872	$10,546	$10,216	$12,213	$15,431	$10,398
2004-05	$10,961	$9,700	$10,452	$12,034	$10,756	$10,458	$12,318	$15,254	$10,715
Non-government schools (2004-05 $ per student)
	NSW	Vic	Qld	WA	SA	Tas	ACT	NT	Aust
2000-01	$5,101	$4,556	$5,413	$5,678	$4,731	$4,804	$4,656	$6,858	$5,030
2001-02	$5,331	$4,772	$5,669	$5,753	$4,998	$5,223	$4,868	$8,727	$5,270
2002-03	$5,288	$4,838	$5,620	$5,559	$4,969	$5,220	$4,904	$8,796	$5,251
2003-04	$5,755	$5,202	$6,006	$5,878	$5,302	$5,752	$5,269	$8,797	$5,648
2004-05	$6,210	$5,451	$6,689	$6,191	$5,786	$6,175	$5,274	$8,114	$6,054

Again the government schools rose (by 12%), but this time so did the Non Government schools by (20%).

If you look at the Australian figures for 2000-2001, compared to the 2008 figures you get this:

Government Schools

• $ 9,576 2000-01
• $12,651 2008
• A funding increase of 32%

Non Government Schools

• $ 5,030 2000-01
• $ 6,546 2008
• A funding increase of 30%

Now, because these figures are using 2004-5 and 2008 $ values, these percentages are not accurate representations of actual increases, in real dollar terms, they do, however,  show the difference between funding for State Schools and Non State schools between 2001 and 2008.

The results is very different to the original quoted article, which incidentally was not supported by any facts.

The result is that State Schools have received a slightly larger increase in funding that non-state schools between 2001 and 2008.  Maybe only about 2% in difference though, so nothing to write a news story about

Sources:

• 2008 www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2010 Chapter 4 School education Attachment tables
• 2005 www.pc.gov.au/gsp/reports/rogs/2007 Part B Education Attachment tables

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