The Productivity Commission says that despite school funding rising to $72 billion, improvements in academic outcomes have stalled.

The commission’s figures show that school funding per student rose by 1.9 per cent a year in real terms between 2012 and 2021.

The rate of increase was far higher for Catholic and independent schools, whose funding allocations rose by 2.8 per cent a year, compared with the 1.7 per cent gain for public schools. Even so, students in government schools receive an average of $20,940, while funding for Catholic and independent schools is about $12,442 per student.

Australian state, territory and federal government expenditure on schools in 2021 totalled $106.7 billion, having risen by 32 per cent over 10 years.

But despite this ongoing boost, the report shows that between 2011 and 2022, there was no significant difference in the reading ability for students in years 5, 7 and 9. The stats do show a statistical improvement for year 3.

Year 3 and year 5 students have improved their reading skills in the last decade, but year 9 has gone backwards and year 7 has not changed since 2008.

Year 5 students were the only cohort to have improved their numeracy results, while year 7 went backwards and no noticeable difference appeared for students in years 3 or 9.

Education Minister Jason Clare will soon begin a year-long negotiation on how the billions in combined state and federal funding will be spent to improve student performance.

The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) says there should be a renewed focus on professional development of the existing teaching workforce in explicit instruction techniques and easy access to high-quality teaching resources.

It also calls for investments in targeted interventions for students significantly behind in their learning, and efforts to address poor well-being and sense of belonging at school.

AERO also suggests funds be spent on improving the career paths and earning capacity for the best teachers, which it says will contribute to turning around Australia’s underwhelming performance.