Jason Clare says the deal to fully fund NSW public schools is a decade overdue. But it’ll take a decade to fully arrive | Australian education

The education minister didn’t mince his words when fronting the media on Tuesday to announce the commonwealth had done a deal with New South Wales to fully fund public schools for the first time.

“This is the big one,” Jason Clare said. “New South Wales is the biggest education system in the country and this is the biggest investment in public education by an Australian government, ever.”

After more than seven months of squabbling, all the states and territories except Queensland have finally agreed to a pathway that would fully fund public schools and fulfil the promise of Gonski – with a caveat. But more on that later.

In practical terms, it will mean each student will be funded to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). The SRS is a mechanism, devised by the Gonski review, which estimates how much funding a school requires to meet the full educational needs of its students and reduce the impact of social disadvantage on educational outcomes.

It is a fixed baseline amount (currently $13,977 for primary students and $17,565 for secondary students), with additional loadings for priority cohorts – like First Nations students or students with disabilities – as well as disadvantaged schools.

The new funding, to be rolled out from next year, will be tied to education reforms and targets, including individualised support, evidence-based teaching practices, phonics and numeracy checks, as well as mental health and wellbeing support.

Most politicians would agree that fully funding public schools is a no-brainer.

“The bottom line is it should’ve been done over a decade ago,” Clare said on Tuesday.

What’s been at issue for so long is who should stump up the money.

Currently, under a model enacted by the Turnbull government , the commonwealth contributes 20% of the total funding to public schools, while states are required to fund public schools at 75% – leaving a 5% gap.

Data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) data shows that 98% of private schools are overfunded according to the SRS.

The commonwealth initially proposed a 2.5% increase to public schools, to bring its total funding contribution to 22.5%, with state governments to match the rest – excluding the Northern Territory, which will have its contribution doubled to 40%.

The ACT, Western Australia, the NT and Tasmania were happy to sign up to the deal, but the biggest states held out, pushing the federal government to increase their funding to 25% because it had a comparatively larger pool to draw from.

With the clock ticking, the prime minister eventually intervened, telling the National Press Club in January that Labor would concede to the demands of the major states and ink deals with Victoria and South Australia to deliver the 5% increase.

A deal with Queensland is unlikely. The state’s education minister said it had until December of this year, when the current funding agreement expired, to negotiate – despite an election looming sometime in the next two months.

But here’s the caveat. Under the terms of the deal, it will take until 2034 for every student at every school to reach that full funding.

The pace of the rollout means another generation of public school students will go through their entire schooling without the baseline level of funding in most states and territories. Only the Australian Capital Territory has already reached the SRS.

Still, Labor can say they got the deal done, and can go to the election with a positive story to tell on education, which, like health, is a core issue for the party.

Education unions have been clear that they will be campaigning hard for Labor.

As with Medicare, the opposition has pledged to match public school funding arrangements Labor has forged with states and territories.

With a mass exodus from the public school sector continuing, and education gaps remaining persistent, the stakes are above politics.