The education of students who attend independent schools is funded from three sources:
- School fees paid by parents from after tax income.
- Australian Government per capita grants.
- State/Territory government per capita grants.
On average, independent schools receive 60 per cent of their income from private sources and 40 per cent of their income from governments. The relative proportions vary significantly from school to school.
Funding Principles
The independent school sector believes that government funding models for education should reflect three fundamental concepts:
- Individual choice in schooling.
- Diversity of schooling options.
- Committed partnerships between schools, parents and governments.
To support these concepts, the following principles should underpin schools' funding policies:
- A basic entitlement for all students
- Additional needs-based support to recognize relative educational disadvantage of students, including students with disabilities, students from non-English speaking backgrounds, indigenous students, and students from rural and remote areas.
- Stability for families and schools.
- Annual indexation.
The essential criteria for public funding structures for non-government schools are:
- Equity - schools serving similar communities should generally be funded at similar levels.
- Incentive - governments should support students in a way that encourages, not discourages, parental investment in schooling.
- Flexibility - schools should not be locked into a particular funding level, impeding them from responding to changes in their school community.
- Transparency - the relative need of schools should be assessed on reliable and transparent data.
- Simplicity - the funding arrangement should be simple to administer, with low administration costs for both government and schools.
- Predictability - it is important that there is a high degree of stability and certainty in school funding arrangements to assist schools with their financial planning and management.
