AEU ACT Branch President Angela Burroughs says the capital funding gap has consequences for public schools. Photo: AEU.
ACT public schools are being left behind as they increasingly rely on temporary demountable buildings while private schools continue to build quality facilities with the help of Commonwealth funding, a new report shows.
The building divide in Australian schools: How capital funding fuels educational inequity, from the Australian Education Union, shows that students in the most advantaged private schools in the ACT receive more than eight times the capital investment per student compared to students in the most disadvantaged public schools — a gap of $3,840 per student in 2023.
The report cites ACT Education Directorate documents that reveal there were 252 demountable classrooms across ACT public schools in 2025 – a 68 per cent increase since 2022.
In the AEU’s 2025 State of Our Schools survey, 42 per cent of the ACT public school principals surveyed said they had demountable classrooms on site.
The AEU says this highlights the growing infrastructure pressure in the absence of ongoing Commonwealth capital funding.
The report says that capital investment by private schools in the ACT has outpaced public schools by $293.7 million over the past decade, including $93.6 million in 2023 alone.
Burgmann Anglican School in Gungahlin received $2 million in grants. It generated $49 million in revenue in 2024 – including $1 million in Commonwealth funding in 2026 for the construction of a double gymnasium (the school already has two indoor sports centres) and $1 million in 2021 for a middle school design hub.
The report says that nationally, private schools outspent public schools on capital works by $38 billion over the past decade, including $5.4 billion in 2023 alone.
Capital investment averaged $2746 per student per year in private schools, compared with $1237 per student in public schools.
Between 2017 and 2025, the Commonwealth’s Non-Government School Capital Grants Program delivered more than $1.6 billion to private schools, with a almost $3 billion scheduled between 2025 and 2034.
The AEU says that public schools suffered a decade of neglect until 2023-24, when the Albanese Government made a one-off injection of $216 million in capital works funding to 202 public schools across Australia.
But public schools receive no permanent federal capital stream, it says.
The AEU is calling on the Commonwealth to provide an immediate injection of capital funding to public schools, establish a permanent capital works fund, and negotiate a joint partnership with state and territory governments to ensure all public schools have access to adequate and safe 21st-century learning environments.
The report also says private schools are increasingly reallocating recurrent income to capital works, often in amounts matching their Commonwealth recurrent funding.
Canberra Grammar School has a strong building program. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Canberra Grammar School received $25.8 million in Commonwealth recurrent funding between 2021 and 2023 and reallocated $37.6 million to capital projects.
“This transfer of recurrent funding to capital projects serves multiple purposes for these schools,” the report says.
“As fees alone exceed the educational requirements of their students, Commonwealth recurrent funding contributions then function as ‘free money’ which is spent to build ever more luxurious facilities, increasing demand for enrolments and allowing them to charge higher fees.
“All of this serves to increase the total wealth of schools that in many cases have hundreds of millions of dollars in liquid reserves and other assets.”
AEU ACT Branch President Angela Burroughs said the findings showed the practical consequences of the funding gap.
“Principals are telling us they have classrooms that aren’t fit for purpose, that don’t have sufficient heating or cooling, buildings that need full rebuilds, and facilities that simply don’t meet accessibility standards for students and staff with disability,” she said.
“No modern education system should expect staff and students to operate in those conditions.”
Ms Burroughs said ACT public schools were being asked to deliver inclusive education, expanded wellbeing supports and a full curriculum, yet many were operating in facilities that were not fit for purpose.
“Without a guaranteed, long-term Commonwealth capital funding stream, the infrastructure divide in the ACT will only continue to widen,” she said.
AEU Federal President Correna Haythorpe said elite private schools were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on capital infrastructure, while the Commonwealth had provided no ongoing capital funding stream for public schools since 2017.
“That is not an accident. It is the result of policy choices that keep directing public funding towards already wealthy private schools,” she said.
In the AEU’s 2025 State of Our Schools Survey, ACT public school principals described significant infrastructure challenges, including buildings not fit for purpose, insufficient heating and cooling, inadequate science and technology facilities, limited accessibility for students with disability, and schools operating without enough specialist learning spaces.
Principals reported that the funding provided did not meet the actual cost of maintaining and upgrading facilities to an acceptable standard.
Last year, Education Minister Yvette Berry established an independent review of school resourcing in the wake of revelations that 84 per cent of ACT public schools were over budget or would be by the end of the year.
