School funds disclosure hailed


A WESLEY College parent has applauded the federal government for forcing private schools to ''come clean'' about their finances on the My School website.

Independents schools oppose changes to the website, approved by education ministers yesterday, which mean private schools will have to publish private sources of income, including donations.

But Simon Smith, who has waged a seven-year battle to get Wesley to make public its audited financial reports, says it is unacceptable for private schools not to be transparent.


Dr Smith, who has a daughter in year 9 at Wesley, believes some private schools have resisted publishing financial data on My School because it would reveal their wealth.

He said this would lead to questions about why fees are so high and why elite schools get millions of dollars in Commonwealth funding. ''If they've got nothing to hide, why not put audited figures on the website.''

Some independent schools are concerned that the disclosure of private sources of income on My School will be used to justify changing the federal government's controversial private school funding model.

A five-person panel, chaired by prominent businessman David Gonski, is reviewing the funding model and will report next year.

Dr Smith said independent schools did not want people to know how much they ''double dip'' into the public purse, by receiving direct government grants and tax deductibility from donations.

The financial information will be reported under five headings: recurrent government income, including funding from federal, state or territory governments; recurrent private income, including fees, voluntary contributions, donations and investment income; government capital funding; private capital funding; and total expenditure.

The ministers also agreed to report how much students had improved since they last sat national literacy and numeracy tests two years ago, and on changes to an index used to group schools serving similar student populations. The index, compiled from census collection district data, will be supplemented with information on the socio-economic characteristics of families, where it is available for sources such as enrolment questionnaires.

The fine detail of the changes is expected to be approved by the ministers in early December before the site is relaunched later that month.

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Private schools are created for rich and stupid.
Public schools are necessity for smart and poor.

Here is a thread imcrook could have added to.