Labor’s budget has failed the public schools test, committing even more to private schools than the Morrison Government pledged in its March budget, the Greens say.

The Albanese Government has promised private schools $70.2 billion over the forward estimates, $1.7 billion more than Scott Morrison guaranteed in his pre-election budget. The private school sector will now receive an even greater share of Commonwealth funding under Labor than it would have under the Coalition.

A new report calling for a bank of centralised lesson plans for teachers is a one-size-fits-all solution that undermines teacher expertise and will lead to worse student outcomes, the Greens say.

Comments attributable to Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Lesson planning is at the core of the work teachers do. Outsourcing it to the government or the private sector undermines that work and will produce worse outcomes for students.

The Greens say an interim report by the Productivity Commission into the National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA) obscures the fact that persistent funding inequity is the main reason why the Agreement is failing to meet its goals.

It’s projected that, until the end of the decade, private schools will be funded over 100% of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), while public schools won’t even reach 91%. On average, public school students are missing out on $1800 in funding every year under the NSRA.

The Greens have called on the nation’s education ministers to tackle the root causes of the teacher shortage crisis, after today’s roundtable failed to produce a credible plan for real reform.

Comments attributable to Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“It’s great that teachers had a seat at the table at today’s Education Ministers Meeting. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that the ministers were really paying attention. 

The Greens say a proposal by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership to parachute inexperienced staff into classrooms and give pay rises to a mere handful of teachers is an insult to hard-working educators across the country and will do very little to address teacher shortages.

Comments attributable to Greens spokesperson on schools, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Targeted incentive schemes are just technocratic tinkering that does nothing to fix the underlying problem with our public schools.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi,has said that need and equity, not desperate electoral strategies, should guide schools funding in Australia and has called on the Federal Government to reverse its Gonski 2.0 education cuts.

Senator Faruqi said:

"Equity and need, not marginal seats, should determine our education policy.

"Funding of our schools should be based on what is needed for our kids to have a world class education, not based on desperate political and electoral strategies. Our schools are not political footballs.