Wealthy private schools are receiving a government assistance payment for students with disabilities up to six times higher than that received in the public system.
A Guardian Australia investigation has uncovered a vast disparity in the funding flowing to high-needs students as mainstream schools struggle to support the almost 1 million students in Australia now reporting a disability.
New data shows that public school students eligible for a disability payment receive an average amount from the commonwealth of $2,941, while more than 100 non-government schools receive, on average, in excess of $10,000 per funded student.
State governments – which are responsible for allocating funding to public schools – do not use the same methodology to fund individual support for students with a disability as the federal government, which allocates funding directly to private schools.
This means a disabled student with the same level of need is not guaranteed the same level of support in a public school.
The data, which was provided by the Department of Education to the Senate, shows Mooroolbark Grammar in Melbourne – a private school with links to the Church of Scientology – is receiving an average of almost $16,000 for each student receiving the federal government’s “student with disability” (SWD) payment.
Radford College in Canberra receives an average of almost $13,000 per funded student, while Loreto Normanhurst and MLC school in Sydney receive an average per student of about $12,000.
The average amount for each student in the New South Wales public system eligible for the SWD is $2,600.
How the system works
The SWD payment is based on data reported to the federal government by every school in Australia through the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability.
The top three categories of the NCCD – supplementary, substantial and extensive – attract a federal support payment depending on the level of support needed, ranging from $5,694 to $42,298 a student. The lowest level does not attract any funding, with about 300,000 students not receiving any financial support through the loading payment.
Because the federal government is the main funder of private schools, 80% of the SWD payment flows directly from the commonwealth to the school.
But for public schools there is no direct link between a school that reports the data and the payment it ultimately receives, with the federal government paying 20% of the disability loading to the state education department in line with its 20% share of the school resourcing standard paid to the states.
The state education department then uses its own methodology for allocating disability support payments, meaning the disability payment may never reach the student reported under the NCCD as needing financial support.
Private schools that are receiving more than 100% of the school resourcing standard as a result of being overfunded by the commonwealth are also receiving more than 100% of the SWD loading payment.
For example, Loreto Kirribilli in Sydney was entitled to 134% of the school resourcing standard in 2023, granting it a loading payment also set at 134%, equating to $10,499 a student on average.
The link between the NCCD categorisation and state funding support varies between states but individual support funding is going to a fraction of the number of students eligible for the student with a disability payment.
Unlike other federal government school payments, the disability loading is not adjusted based on the financial capacity of families to contribute to education costs.
The disability loading payment is forecast to cost $3.6bn in 2024 and has grown at an average annual rate of 15% over the past five years. It now accounts for more than 10% of the commonwealth’s recurrent schools funding, with 60% of the total amount going to non-government schools.
‘A complete lack of transparency’
The Australian Education Union’s federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said it was “shameful” the government was paying far more to wealthy private schools than to public schools to support students with a disability.
The union is pushing for an increase in the federal government’s contribution to the school resourcing standard and also wants funding to go to the 30% of disabled students who now receive none.
“Governments talk a lot about a fully inclusionary education environment, but they haven’t been prepared to fund public schools to provide it,” Haythorpe said.
“Principals are endlessly juggling money trying to determine what they can delay or reduce spending on, such as school maintenance, so they can provide more support for students with disability.”
Victoria University’s Stephen Lamb, a former member of the National School Resourcing Board, said the funding for students with disabilities nationally was a “dog’s breakfast”, with each state assessing and funding student needs differently.
“There is no consistency. A parent in one state may have a very different experience compared to what plays out in another state.”
A 2019 report into the student with disability payment undertaken by the board noted that there was a “weak alignment” between the NCCD data and the amount state education departments ended up paying to support students with disabilities in public schools.
Lamb said private schools were benefiting from the NCCD payment but there was no way of knowing how much of the federal loading was flowing through to state schools, criticising the “complete lack of transparency”.
“Parents, families and schools don’t know what they should be getting under these different models and you end up with nobody knowing.
“If there is any child with need in a school, that child has to be our organising principle, we need to ensure everything is in place for that child, but there are a lot of children who are not getting what is needed.”
Guardian Australia sought information from all state government departments about the link between NCCD status and targeted funding in public schools.
Most states provide two funding sources – a low level funding amount paid as “block” funding to each school, and a separate package of support available for individual needs.
None of the states was able to advise how much they paid schools to support each student eligible for a commonwealth loading payment.
Western Australia reports that about 65% of all students in the top three categories received individual disability allocation funding from the state government in 2023 but it does not use NCCD data to determine its payments.
In NSW only 17,800 students with moderate to high support needs received individual funding, compared with the 148,000 students in the top three categories under the NCCD.
The Queensland Department of Education claimed an extra 40,000 students with disability were supported in 2023 than under a previous funding model. But it did not provide a breakdown of individuals funded compared with the NCCD data.
A spokesperson for South Australia’s Department of Education said it was “unable to identify the percentage of students who benefit from state targeted programs” registered under the NCCD but said 6% of government school students received individual funding support.
Do you know more? Contact sarah.martin@theguardian.com
