[Jan Fisher]

Did anyone else take a second look at the figures that show five private schools spent as much on capital works in 2021 than more than half of Australia’s public schools? That’s about 3000 public schools.

That’s right, five. The report was released by the Australian Education Union, and they probably cherry-picked the schools who did a lot of capital works that year, but even if the figures were doubled for private schools and halved for public schools, those sorts of numbers are ridiculous.

According to The Guardian $175.6m was spent across five private schools in Victoria and NSW in 2021 alone, which was more than what the federal and state or territory governments spent on capital works to upgrade 3372 – or about half of all – public schools ($175.4m).

Full disclosure, my kids went to private school, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have problems with some of their financial practices.

Those include the lack of transparency on how money is spent (every second teacher seems to have a management title in these places), pointless fees such as ‘application fees’, some of which were approaching $300, and the reluctance to share resources with public schools.

If our taxes are funding these schools, then public students should be able to use some of those magnificent sporting ovals and Olympic-standard pools, most of which are idle apart from a few hours a week.

In one way, I don’t blame the schools. If the government is throwing you money, you’d be stupid not to take it. So maybe the blame should be shifted to the successive governments who have allowed this to happen.

What do you think, should we ease off on funding private schools?

[Cosmo]

I would think the starting point in any attempt to sort out this can of worms of educational inequality would be to ensure that every child receives the same amount of public money from the same source. Ajustments for genuine disadvantaged schools should then be made from that base.
The funding of private schools from federal and public schools from States has the potential, appearance, and reality of distorting educational funding by lobbying and pork barreling exacerbated by the fact that a disproportionate number of politicians were students of and send their children to private schools. So guess what?

We know what works best because we send countless experts overseas to study more successful systems than ours and they return to have only the bits that suit us cherry picked.

On top of this we lack an educational culture. The prime minister committed more money towards a football stadium in Hobart than is spent on half of the nation’s public schools’ capital works. The ability to kick or hit a piece of leather around a paddock is valued more highly than the ability to invent, make and create or to fix humans, proved by the frequency that many immigrant children from lower socio-economic backgrounds exceed local kids at school.

[ronloby]

We should NOT be funding Private schools. With the cost of fees at private schools way up in the thousands per year they have enough funding. Public schools don’t get near enough funding from governments. It is about time to stop funding private schools and assist public schools with more money.

[David Ryder]

It’s tricky because not all private schools are wealthy. The Catholic sector operate a private system with often low fees which are affordable for the people wanting to use them.
Maybe the solution to the inequity is a needs based system, basically with means testing as with pensions.
Meaning full payments to government schools and means tested payments to private schools resulting in the low fee private schools retaining full payments and the high fee ones receiving less.

[KayJay]

You have to be careful with any changes to private school funding and what would occur if the changes resulted in a substantial increase in the number of pupils having to go to public schools. The cost to provide the extra schools and infrastructure to cope, would be far greater than the current funding provided.

Currently about 40% of children are going to private schools. How would the Government cope if any changes introduced, caused a substantial increase in the number of people deciding to have their children educated publicly. The private schools may have to raise their fees even more than the current high fees and extras cost, if it resulted in less Government help.

Not all private school children come from “millionaire” homes-some parents make substantial sacrifices, because they believe private schools provide a better education more in tune with their own expectations and with less political opportunity than in public schools. Private school teachers have to follow the specific private school’s known style and are less able to bend their lessons towards their personal political or lifestyle beliefs.

I guess importantly, what are the educational results of public v private schools.

[Clelo]

This is a real quandary, private V public. To put it simply, we should really be prioritizing on what is most important and urgently needed in this current economic climate. Private school funding is way down the list when you put that up against housing, cost of living, cost of utilities, homelessness and the ability to just feed your family. On the other side the private schools are catering for an area across the country of people who don’t wish to have their children publicly educated. If they didn’t opt for this system the public purse would have to support them which would require a huge capital outlay in facilities. So what to do, I think our priority is to support our population with the necessities of life – food, housing and healthcare. The private schools will survive and if they don’t, then that’s money back in the public purse.

[Mocha]

I get so tired of this endless debate. Not every private school has high fees and cater for more disadvantaged children via scholarships and not all parents are extremely highly paid. Every child should be paid for equally via the varying governments whether they go to public or private. All it is that private schools have their fees added on so be able to pay their teachers better wages and offer facilities to their pupils. Let parents decide where they want to send their children as each school public/private offer differing aspects for their children. The public system would be totally overrun if private schools closed their doors so some common sense should come into this debate.

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