Victorian state school parents spend record $400m on ‘free’ education

For example, Clifton Hill Primary School, which is the top one per cent of socio-educationally advantaged schools in the country, received $1167 per student in fees, charges and parent payments in 2018, MySchool data shows.

In the same year Gowrie Street Primary School in Shepparton, which is in the bottom four per cent, received $287 per student.

“It shouldn’t be about their capacity to pay,” Ms McHardy said. “It should be about how they can give children a quality education to meet their potential, without that pressure of having capacity to pay.”

Varying parent payment levels also demonstrated the ways in which schools were driven to “get creative to cover budget shortfalls”, Ms McHardy said.

School leaders were putting time and effort into community fundraising efforts to cover basics, she said. “They have got enough to do: their priority is to teach our kids.”

A Department of Education spokesperson said schools “must develop their own parent payment arrangements in accordance with department policy”.

“These arrangements must be approved by school council, uploaded onto the school website and communicated to parents for transparency,” the spokesperson said.

Schools typically offer significant discounts and payment plans to families in need.

Victoria’s Auditor-General investigated additional school costs for families in 2015, and found that “the principles of a free, secular and compulsory education were first established in Victoria in the Education Act 1872 [but] have been watered down over time”.

“Parents of children in government schools are now required under law and government policy to pay for items such as books, stationery and camps,” the auditor-general wrote in his report.

According to the report, parents paid $310 million in parent payments in 2013, or $558 per student.

Anna Hogan, a researcher in the University of Queensland’s School of Education, is researching the flow of private money into public schools via a grant with the Australian Research Council.

She said fundraising in public schools had become the norm to prop up perceived government funding deficits.

School environments are increasingly commercialised, with corporate advertising on noticeboards, in newsletters and on sports equipment, Dr Hogan said. Some public schools have raised up to $1 million in a year.

“They are buying computers, library books, teaching and learning resources, funding airconditioning and renovating schools to look more like their private school counterparts,” Dr Hogan said.