Australia and Canada share much in common in terms of history, culture and demography. School students in the two countries have similar socio-economic characteristics and each nation spends similar amounts on school education and pays teachers similarly.Despite these similarities, Canada has much lower levels of social segregation in its schools, and higher levels of equity and achievement, consistently outperforming Australia in the OECD’s PISA tests across all learning domains. 

In October 2024 a diverse group of educators, school leaders, researchers and peak body heads visited Canada to find out what Australia can learn about creating a school system that enhances equity, opportunity and achievement.

The Australian study group, supported by Australian Learning Lecture and Leading Educators Around the Planet, visiting the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

We wanted to find out what Canada can teach us about creating a fair, inclusive, equitable and effective school system. This task was made more challenging – and interesting – because education is a purely provincial responsibility. As far as education goes, Canada is akin to a union of thirteen different nations. This post, based on the recently published Lessons From Canada: An Equal School System is Possible, reports on two of the largest.

Ontario, Canada’s largest province, has an actually existing needs-based funding system.

Australia has been trying and failing to implement a needs-based funding system for 50 years; Ontario fully implemented needs-based funding more than a quarter of a century ago. While there has been much recent talk about historic funding deals in Australia, the Commonwealth will deliver just 2.5% of the additional funding this decade.

Ontario’s fully implemented needs-based funding system means, for example, that in 2024/25 the Halton District School Board, in one of the most affluent parts of Toronto, will receive $14,273 per student. By contrast, the school board that covers the vast stretch of territory of northwestern Ontario will receive $40,678, almost three times as much, per student. Ontario shows that needs-based funding is achievable, and genuine reform is possible.

In Ontario secular and faith-based schools are resourced and regulated on a common basis

The government has promised Australian public schools receive the full minimum resource standard by 2034. That’s nine years away. But even then, inequitable resourcing will continue. 

Why? Australian private schools receive both public and private funding, something which undermines the equity intention of governments. The result is that total per-student funding, for example, at Sydney’s Newington College isn’t far short of the per-student amount for Cobar in remote NSW.

In contrast, Ontario shows that it is possible to fund all schools, irrespective of sector, according to the educational needs of the students they enrol. This is how it works. Secular and faith-based schools are fully publicly funded, prohibited from charging fees, and operate on a level playing field of rules, regulations and policies. A large majority of young Ontarians (around 92 percent) attend schools that are part of the common legislative and financial framework. The small sector of fee-charging private schools, serving just 7 percent of students, receives no public funding.

Ontario’s schools have low levels of social segregation and support high achievement.

The consequence of removing fee barriers, as well as other enrolment discriminators, is that Ontario’s faith-based schools serve a much higher proportion of children from low-income households than their counterparts in Australia. Even though our societies are similar, the level of social segregation in Ontario’s school system is much lower than in Australia. Ontario’s 15-year-olds achieved at significantly higher levels in PISA 2022. This pattern is repeated in Alberta which also has faith-based public schools, low segregation and high student achievement.

Needs-based funding across secular and faith-based school systems is affordable.

Ontario spends slightly less on education than Australia as a proportion of GDP. And yet it can deliver full needs-based funding across secular and faith-based school systems. This is partly because Australian governments already fund so many non-government schools at or above the level of equivalent public schools; and it’s partly because the Government of Ontario provides no public funding to fee-charging schools.

Quebec has similar policy settings to Australia and the same problems

Like Australia, Quebec heavily subsidises private schools, with public funding as high as 75 percent of the level received by public schools. At the same time, the province does little to regulate fees or enrolment practices. Like Australia there is a high level of social segregation across Quebec’s schools, with the children of high-income families mostly concentrated in private schools, and selective public schools. The level of social segregation in Quebec is much worse than any other Canadian province.

In Quebec, a group of concerned parents and citizens are campaigning for a fairer, more inclusive and more effective school system.

École Ensemble (School Together) has developed a plan for a ‘common network’ of publicly funded schools. The proposed common network would include public schools and ‘contracted’ private schools. The latter would be fully publicly financed and free while retaining management autonomy (as is the case in Ontario). All schools in the common network would be assigned enrolment areas optimised to maximise socio-economic diversity and reduce travel times. To minimise disruption private schools would transition to the common network in a graduated way over a six-year period. Economic modelling commissioned by École Ensemble reveals that the common network would save the Government of Quebec almost CA $100 million each year once the transition is completed.

A path forward in Australia

Our governments must demonstrate much greater ambition if we are to enhance equity and achievement in our schools. 

Existing funding agreements have delayed most additional funding until the 2030s. At the same time, essential recommendations of the Improving Outcomes for All report remain unimplemented. Critically, the expert panel called for annual public reporting of the socio-economic diversity of Australian schools and school systems; and a review to evaluate interventions that have successfully enhanced socio-economic diversity in comparable countries. Canada shows just how much we have to learn (and we haven’t even mentioned British Columbia).

Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor are co-authors of Lessons From Canada: An Equal School System is Possible published by Australian Learning Lecture. A Concise Summary version is also available.

Chris Bonnor AM is a former teacher and secondary school principal. He was a previous head of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council and co-authored The Stupid Country and What Makes a Good School with Jane Caro. He has served on the Board of Big Picture Education Australia, was the lead author of six Centre for Policy Development papers and has contributed articles to a range of publications and media.

Tom Greenwell is co-author with Chris Bonnor of Waiting for Gonski, How Australia failed its schools (UNSW Press 2022) and Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for All Australian Schools (ALL 2023). He has written extensively about Australian education and public affairs and teaches history and politics in the ACT public education system.