Australian primary private schools should be fully funded by governments — but banned from charging fees

To fix inequality in Australian education, governments should fully fund all non-government primary schools, according to former former NSW Education Minister and now head of the UNSW Gonski Institute, Adrian Piccoli. In an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Piccoli suggests government funding be dependent on non-government schools no longer collecting fees from parents and agreeing to abide by the same enrolment and accountability rules as public schools. The fully-funded non-government primary private schools would still be run by the same organisations as before, and abide by the same educational philosophy. But no student would be turned away. Fully funding primary schools would enable parents to access neighbourhood non-government schools at no cost. It would provide welcome relief for parents who now send their children to non-government primary schools, but who are facing difficulties paying fees due to the COVID-19 recession.