Private schools will be forced to be more transparent about the salaries of their top staff and principals, some of whom earn triple their public school counterparts with pay packets exceeding $600,000.
Under a shake-up to Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) rules, all large charities – which include most private schools – will be forced to disclose the total sum paid annually to their biggest earners.
Most private schools will be forced to disclose the remuneration packages of their biggest earners.Credit:louis douvis
Private schools will need to report the aggregate amount paid to their most senior staff – likely to include principals, deputies, bursars and financial officers – in their 2022 annual information statements, but it will remain voluntary to disclose individual salaries.
“Given the scale of public funding provided to private schools this is definitely a step in the right direction,” said Paul Kidson, an education leadership academic at the Australian Catholic University and a former independent school principal.
“Transparency and confidence in expenditure is expected of public institutions. Other government and public companies reveal chief executive salaries, so it’s more than reasonable we expect more accountability from independent schools, particularly when teachers’ salaries are public, as are the salaries of principals, in government schools.”
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A national survey of 275 private school principals by the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA) provided to the herald shows the mean base salary for private school principals jumped by more than $10,000 in the past two years, rising from $326,166 in 2020 to $337,183 in 2022.
AHISA chief executive Beth Blackwood said there was a significant spread in principal salaries across independent schools – from just over $100,000 through to $600,000 – which takes in variables such as enrollments, boarding, whether schools are regional or metropolitan and the funding they receive.
NSW public school principals earn a maximum salary of $194,816 and the secretary of the state’s Department of Education, who runs 2,200 schools, has a salary of $600,000.