Pyne faces angry schools ministers

The NSW education minister says the Abbott government must keep its promise on schools funding. Source: AAP

FEDERAL Education Minister Christopher Pyne faces a battle on multiple fronts over his plan to overhaul schools funding but denies he is at war with any part of the sector.

State and territory education ministers left a meeting with Mr Pyne in Sydney on Friday angry over his decision to renege on agreements they entered into with the previous Labor government.

NSW education minister Andrew Piccoli described the meeting as "passionate and heated".

"All in all the ministers are very disappointed (that there was) no greater clarity over what the Commonwealth is proposing," Mr Piccoli said.

There is also a growing public campaign calling for the funding agreements to be honoured, and a showdown is looming in federal parliament with the minister confirming he will need to amend laws to put in place a new scheme to fund schools from 2015.

Mr Pyne told reporters outside the meeting he was not to blame for the "shambles" of Labor's schools funding policy.

"It's not my fault that Bill Shorten ripped $1.2 billion out of the funding envelope," Mr Pyne said.

The minister this week announced the coalition government would only honour one year of the funding agreements, and allocate a further $230 million in 2014 to the states that did not sign onto the so-called Gonski scheme.

Labor made deals with NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, as well as independent and Catholic schools, but Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory held out.

Mr Piccoli said his federal Liberal colleagues had breached the trust of voters, and he and Premier Barry O'Farrell would continue to press for the four-year agreement to be honoured.

He said the next step would be to escalate the issue to the Council of Australian Governments meeting on December 13.

"It can't stop here," Mr Piccoli told AAP.

"As an education community, pressure will be placed on the Commonwealth to change their mind."

Mr Piccoli said there was majority support among the ministers for a needs-based funding system, in line with the Gonski review.

ACT education minister Joy Burch said the territory's six-year agreement was now the victim of federal government "policy on the run".

Tasmanian minister Nick McKim said there was a "unity ticket" between Labor, the Greens and coalition states on sticking up for Australian schools and said Mr Pyne had created a "crisis of uncertainty."

"(Mr Pyne) has dropped a stick of dynamite into what was a very tranquil pool," Mr McKim said.

Mr Pyne declined to criticise any of the state and territory ministers.

"I'm not at war with anybody," he said.

"I will work collaboratively and respectfully with all my colleagues."

He said the government would keep its pre-election promise to match "dollar for dollar" schools funding allocated by the previous Labor government for 2014.

But beyond that, he would sit down with the state ministers and develop a new model in the early part of 2014.

Greens education spokeswoman Penny Wright said her party would block in the Senate any amendment that "increased inequality in education".

Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said Mr Pyne had injected "absolute uncertainty" into schools funding.

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