The NSW government is cutting public school funding by $148 million.

The cuts have sparked significant debate and concern among educators and the public. 

The reduction stems from “necessity”, according to NSW Education Secretary Murat Dizdar, who attributes it to a reported decline in public school student numbers of nearly 25,000 over the past four years, and an assessment of the educational system as being over-staffed at the executive level.

In addition to the budget cuts, the NSW Department of Education has mandated that deputy principals, head teachers, and assistant principals increase their classroom teaching time to address acute teacher shortages. 

Deputy principals are expected to teach a minimum of one day each week, with head teachers and assistant principals required to teach at least three days a week. 

This shift is part of a broader strategy to reprioritise resources towards frontline teaching amidst ongoing enrollment declines and financial pressures.

The funding adjustments and operational changes have led to concerns about the potential impact on educational quality and administrative capacity within NSW public schools. 

Some fear that the reassignment of deputy principals and other senior staff to teaching roles could dilute the focus on educational leadership and strategic management within schools.

The changes come amid a tense dialogue between the NSW government and the federal government regarding overall funding for public education. 

The NSW government has been vocal in its demand for the Commonwealth to increase its share of public school funding by an additional $8.2 billion over 10 years. 

This request aims to address perceived inequities in public school funding and to ensure that NSW schools can meet the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) - a benchmark established under the Gonski reforms for fair and needs-based funding across Australian schools.

Negotiations between the states and the Commonwealth on this issue have been fraught, with the federal government proposing a 22.5 percent funding share for public schools, a figure that NSW has rejected in favour of a higher contribution. 

NSW Education Minister Prue Car says the state’s measures are focused on optimising resources to address teacher shortages and ensure high-quality education delivery and coincidentally follow the government’s recent historic teacher pay rise, which boosted salaries of graduate teachers by $10,000.