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With education ministers meeting this week to discuss school funding, a close look at the figures reveals large differences between states and sectors
IT’S HARD to imagine that travellers between Sydney and Melbourne once had to stop at a customs post at the border, or change trains at Albury because each state had a different rail gauge, or suffer the winding two-lane NSW highway until reaching the better road in Victoria. All that has changed, and these days travellers might not even notice they’ve crossed the border – unless they’re parents or teachers of school-age children.
Close to the border on the NSW side is Albury Public School, with its 600 students. Not far over the other side is Wodonga Primary School, enrolling students who are measurably less advantaged, according to the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage, or ICSEA. In the world that could have been after the Gonski report was released, each less-advantaged student at Wodonga Primary would have been supported by governments at higher levels than those at Albury Public. But the reality is the reverse. In 2014, the Victorian government funded each student at Wodonga Primary to the tune of $6173. The NSW government provided $8110 for each of its students at Albury Public…
