Remote schools in the Northern Territory (NT) have been missing out on significant funding.
The shortfall is the result of a government funding policy and has meant access to as much as $3.4 million in funding per year has been lost.
NT Education Minister Eva Lawler committed to seeing the effective enrolment funding method scrapped in a two-to-five-year period, in response to recommendations from a review commissioned by the NT government. The effective enrolment funding method is unique to the NT and distributes school funding based chiefly on attendance, rather than actual enrolment data.
The result is that some remote schools in the NT have only been receiving funding for less than half of all their enrolled students – the majority of which are Indigenous. Advocates for better quality education in the NT have labelled the issue as a “downward spiral” of funding cuts. Despite that, Ms Lawler said the model will remain in place until “probably around 2025”.
“In the recommendations [of the review], they talked about it … transitioning fully over time, and continuing to monitor and adjust,” she said.
The government responded to the first draft of the report in May 2022, which included modelling of the impact on NT schools if funding was immediately redistributed based on (average) enrolment figures, instead of attendance. But that modelling was not included in the final report and was never made public.
Indigenous students in remote schools are missing out
According to the draft report, schools in remote Aboriginal communities were identified as the top eight schools that would benefit from the proposed funding model change.
“Modelling results show that a transition to a three-year weighted average of enrolments funding methodology will change the distribution of per-student funding received by students of different demographic characteristics,” the draft report said.
“Specifically, Aboriginal students, students that speak English as a second language, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and students located in remote areas will on average receive more funding.”
If the effective enrolment model was scrapped immediately, two Arnhem Land schools – Maningrida College and Shepherdson College – would each receive an extra $3.4 million a year.
Public government data shows that, in 2022, Maningrida College received just over $5 million in government funding, with Shepherdson College receiving $5.6 million.
With the majority of schools currently missing out in the electorate of independent member for Mulka and Yolŋu man Yingiya Mark Guyula – a man who has spent years highlighting failures in the remote education system – the data reveals that some of the issues could have been addressed.
“The data clearly shows that the government have been taking resources from remote schools and allocating them to Darwin,” Mr Guyula said.
Mr Guyula said the report proves the government was aware of the problem – a problem he believes has contributed to spiralling attendance rates in recent years — especially in remote area schools.
“I have been raising these issues since 2017 and the current Education Minister has never acknowledged the systemic racism that is embedded in this policy or the destructive outcomes that have seen remote school budgets continuing to decrease over a decade,” he said.
“The lack of government action to urgently address this issue means they either don’t care or it is intentional that they are starving our schools of the resources needed to build strong, successful two-way schools.”
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare confirmed that, on average, public schools in the Northern Territory are the most underfunded schools in Australia.
“The Albanese Government is committed to working with state and territory governments to put all schools on a path to full and fair funding,” Minister Clare said.
He said a review – currently underway – will inform the bilateral funding negotiations.
The final report is due to be handed down to all education ministers in late October.
