The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement - Full and Fair Funding 2025-2034 is a joint agreement between the Australian Commonwealth, states and territories. An analysis of the agreement finds that public schools will still be underfunded in 2034 despite claims otherwise. The paper outlines the reasons for the continued underfunding and calls for the agreement to be revised to give public schools better and fairer funding.

Key findings

• The agreement show that public schools will be funded at less than 100% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) in 2034.
• Public schools will be heavily underfunded in each year until 2034. The cumulative underfunding is estimated at $34.6 billion.
• The agreement unfairly discriminates against public schools by allowing governments to claim non-SRS expenditures as part of their share of funding public schools but not for their share of funding private schools.