Experts warn widening inequity as public funds flow to well-resourced independent schools
Australia’s school system is drifting into deeper inequity, two prominent education figures warn, with market-style competition and funding patterns concentrating disadvantage in public schools and widening achievement gaps. Educational equity is not about treating every student the same, they argue, but ensuring each child gets what they need to succeed, regardless of background.
Experts say Australia continues to lag many OECD nations on this front, with outcomes shaped by postcode and family income — a challenge that sits uneasily with the Federal Government’s ambition for “world-class schools”. Professor Pasi Sahlberg, a University of Melbourne education scholar who has studied systems around the world since moving to Australia in 2018, said Australia is both unequal in access and inequitable in outcomes.
“It is among the more socio-educationally segregated systems, with a growing concentration of students with additional needs and disadvantage in the same schools, predominantly in the public sector,” he said.
He pointed to three dynamics: widening achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students; substantial public funding flowing to already well-resourced independent schools while most public schools remain underfunded; and, consequently, declining enrolments in government schools, weakening the role of public education.
These trends are placing public education under mounting pressure, Sahlberg said. “Tougher market-driven competition between schools does not serve the schools or the broader public good. Indeed, it can erode social cohesion and, over time, undermine national prosperity.
In such a system, the most vulnerable children face diminished learning conditions, while more privileged students are exposed to a narrower, less representative view of society.” He added that equity and prosperity “reinforce one another in a virtuous circle,” noting that systems investing in equity are more likely to sustain high performance and social cohesion over time.
Teach For Australia CEO Edwina Dohle, who has worked across classrooms and the Commonwealth public service, said one of the most significant drivers of inequity is the growing divide between schools. “Too often, a young person’s educational experience is shaped not by their potential, but by their postcode, family income or the circumstances they were born into,” she said.
Over time, she added, disadvantage has become concentrated in particular schools and communities, while access to experienced teachers, specialist expertise, strong leadership and broader supports has become uneven across the system. Dohle also said the system has been too slow to fully deliver a genuinely needs-based approach to funding, especially for schools serving communities facing disadvantage.
The debate goes to the heart of the national ambition for “world-class schools”: so long as equity remains elusive, so too does that goal. Both experts argue that strengthening equity is essential to improving performance and preserving social cohesion across Australia’s education system.