A decade late and millions of dollars short

In 2011, the Gonski Review into Funding for Schooling declared a clear vision: governments should ensure every child, regardless of family background or school sector, has access to an education that meets an international standard.

At the heart of this vision is the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), designed to fund schools according to student need.

The Gonski reforms declared that every child should have access to an education that meets international standards. 

The SRS was grounded in a simple but powerful idea: equity in schooling does not mean treating all students the same but ensuring all students have access to the resources they need to succeed.

In 2026, the SRS is set at AU$14,467 per primary student and AU$18,180 per secondary student.

Additional equity loadings recognise the higher costs of educating students from low socio-economic backgrounds, Indigenous students, students with disability and those with low levels of English proficiency.

In principle, schools serving more disadvantaged communities should receive more funding per student than schools serving more advantaged ones.

This is the cornerstone of needs-based funding and a crucial component of the Gonski review.

But achieving equity depends not only on how much money governments commit overall, but on how that money is distributed within states.

It is here that significant problems remain.

The Victorian shortfall

Our recent research examining school funding in Victoria demonstrates inequities remain widespread.

Despite repeated policy commitments to the Gonski principles, funding continues to be distributed in ways that undermine these principles.

Our analysis of Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) finance data focused on levels of funding across Victoria, paying particular attention to funding patterns within postcode areas to compare neighbouring schools serving broadly similar communities.

What we found was concerning.

Nine Victorian secondary schools received over AU$3 million less than expected based on the SRS. 

In 2023, there were 263 government primary schools and 68 government secondary schools in Victoria that received less than the base SRS per student.

Seven primary schools were underfunded by more than AU$2 million relative to their SRS entitlement, with one falling short by over AU$3 million.

Nine secondary schools received AU$3 million less than expected based on the SRS, including two that were more than AU$5 million less.

Some of these schools may have even been eligible for additional funding from the equity loadings.

These are not trivial shortfalls. They represent real constraints on staffing, learning support, subject offerings and student wellbeing services.

Equity issues

We also found anomalies within local areas.

In many postcode areas, government schools with lower Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) scores – indicating higher levels of disadvantage – received less government funding per student than nearby Catholic or independent schools with more advantaged student populations.

In some cases, this pattern persisted over a three-year period.

For example, in Werribee and surrounding suburbs (postcode area 3030) funding data from 2021, 2022 and 2023 shows there was a consistent pattern of some primary schools receiving less funding per student than neighbouring schools.

This is despite these schools having a lower ICSEA score and higher rates of Indigenous and Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE) students.

Primary schools in postcode 3030 show many schools with less funding than neighbouring schools despite lower ICSEA scores. 

In the Cranbourne area (postcode 3977), it’s the same story.

Data from 2021–2023 shows that some schools received far less funding per student each year than their neighbours, despite lower ICSEA scores.

The expectation underpinning needs-based funding is clear. As ICSEA declines, funding should increase.

But our findings show that this relationship does not always hold.

In fact, in some postcode areas, the school with the highest ICSEA received the highest level of government funding, directly contradicting the intent of the Gonski reforms.

A compounding effect

Due to the constraints of the Australian Constitution, the Australian Government cannot directly provide SRS funding to individual government schools.

Instead, funding is provided to state governments, which then distribute it according to their own formula.

In Victoria, this is done through the Student Resource Package, which does not always align with the SRS.

Our research suggests that this misalignment is a key contributor to the persistence of inequity.

The bigger problem is that funding inequities are not just accounting problems, they shape daily educational experiences.

Secondary schools in lower socio-economic areas offer fewer ATAR-eligible subjects, limiting students’ post-school options.

This means that schools under financial pressure are forced to prioritise affordability rather than what is educationally desirable.

Still waiting for reform

Recent commitments by governments to fully fund schools to the SRS by 2034 are welcome.

But timelines matter, and so does transparency.

Until all schools receive at least their SRS entitlement and until funding within states is demonstrably aligned with student need, the promise of Gonski remains unfulfilled.

Calling attention to these inequities is about accountability and fairness in the use of public funds. A socially just education system should reduce, not reproduce, social inequality.

If Australia is serious about educational equity, we must move beyond rhetoric and deliver resources according to need, so that where a child goes to school does not determine the quality of education they receive.

This article was written by Associate Professor Jenny Chesters, Dr Annie Gowing and Dr Stanley Koh of the University of Melbourne. These authors acknowledge the contributions of Dr Alison J Childs and Dr Mindy MacLeod for their co-authorship of the research paper: Still waiting for Gonski: Anomalies in funding for schooling in Victoria. This article was published by Pursuit.