The forecasts were provided by the Federal Department of Education and Training under Freedom of Information. They show that, in real terms, the public school sector will grow by more than 270,000 extra students in the next ten years, as opposed to only 11,000 extra students for the Catholic sector.
In Victoria, public school enrolments are forecast to grow at almost 10 times that of the Catholic sector over the next decade, while in Queensland public school enrolments are forecast to grow at almost eight times that of the Catholic sector.
Australian Education Union Federal President Correna Haythorpe said that despite funding cuts imposed by the Morrison government, public school enrolment figures were a strong vote of confidence by parents in excellent high-quality public education delivered by committed, highly-qualified teachers.
“These federal school enrolment forecasts demonstrate the complete disconnect between Scott Morrison’s $4.6 billion private school spending splurge and the stark reality of school enrolments,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“The Prime Minister clearly is not looking at actual school student enrolment figures.”
“This data shows that enrolment growth in Catholic schools is stagnant across the country and in some cases, particularly New South Wales and South Australia, dropping quite markedly.” Despite this, the Morrison government is pumping in billions of extra dollars in special deals for the Catholic sector.
“This is in contrast to strong projected enrolment growth in public schools across the nation. This is clear evidence that, despite funding cuts imposed by the Morrison government, public schools provide excellent high-quality education delivered by committed, highly-qualified teachers,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“Private schools have already been handed $1.9 billion in capital works special deal funding by the Morrison government. However public schools do not get a single dollar from the Commonwealth for classrooms, libraries and other state of the art learning facilities,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“Yet, as these enrolment figures show, public school enrolment growth far outstrips that in the Catholic school sector. If Scott Morrison was serious about sector-blind needs-based funding, he would restore the funding cuts and create a public school capital works fund of at least $300m per year, indexed to enrolment growth.”
Ms Haythorpe said public schools had been forgotten by the Morrison government when it came to funding.
“Sixty-five per cent of students in Australia attend public schools. As these figures show, with public school enrolments growing at ten or even twenty times that of Catholic schools, more and more public school students will be short-changed by the Morrison government,” Ms Haythorpe said.
“There are state elections looming in Victoria and New South Wales, as well as a federal election. Public school funding is going to be a critical issue in all of these,” Ms Haythorpe said. “Parents in public school communities understand the importance of fully funding public schools, and they vote.”
“Current federal funding arrangements will leave nearly nine in ten public schools in Australia without enough funding to meet the needs of each student by 2023. It’s clear what needs to happen. The Morrison government must lift its contribution to public school funding,” Ms Haythorpe said.
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