School Funding

All NSW schools receive funding from both the Commonwealth and NSW Government to meet the educational needs of their students, including the purchase of NESA VET courses delivered by approved RTOs external to the school.

This school funding is provided in accordance with the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). Information regarding the SRS can be found here Schooling Resource Standard - Department of Education, Australian Government.

EVET subsidies for schools

The NSW Government provides subsidies from the NSW Skills budget to schools that purchase the delivery of NESA Stage 6 VET courses for students in Years 11 and 12 under the EVET program.

Subsidies are determined using a needs based, sector blind funding model agreed to by the three school sectors, the NSW Department of Education, Catholic Schools NSW and the Association of Independent Schools NSW.

Under the agreement all school sectors/schools must cover at least 10% of the EVET course cost from school funding received from the Commonwealth and NSW Governments. School sectors/schools may choose to cover a greater portion of the course cost from their school funding.

Passing course costs on to parents/carers

Under the agreement with the three school sectors, the NSW Government has determined the maximum proportion of the EVET course cost that a school sector/school can pass on to parents/carers as a condition of the provision of EVET course subsidies. Information regarding the maximum proportion of the EVET course cost a parent/carer can be asked to contribute is in the table below.

The Department of Education chooses to use more of its school funding received from the Commonwealth and NSW Governments to ensure no parent/carer needs to pay any EVET course costs.

Non-government schools may choose to cover all course costs or pass on some of the EVET course cost to parents/carers up to the maximum agreed by means of additional school fees.

The needs-based subsidy model

The level of subsidy a school receives is based its score on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) as published by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) in the year prior to course commencement. The table below summarises the ICSEA rating used to calculate subsidies, the percentage of the course cost provided as a subsidy to the school and the maximum percentage of the course cost a school sector/school may pass on to parents/carers.

Subsidy eligibility

• Only one subsidy per student per year

• Subsidies apply to Year 11 or Year 12 students only.

• Early commencing Stage 6 students are not eligible.

• Where a student undertakes more than one (1) NESA VET courses under the EVET program, the subsidy will apply to the course with the highest fee.