Schools funding disparity inevitable: Govt

The Federal Government has defended the funding discrepancies between schools - as revealed in its My School 2.0 website - as "inevitable".

The improved site is due to be launched on Friday with a range of new features, including a school's finances or how much government funding it receives.

It will show that some schools are getting by with as little as $3000 per student, compared to as much as $150,000 a head at others.

Education minister, Peter Garrett, said the size of funding fluctuated depending on schools' needs, such as those that took students with special needs or those in rural areas.

"So those schools that are in remote areas are going to have high dollar figures attached to them, that's inevitable," he told ABC Radio.

"Across the independent sector I think there'll be some diversity in what's uncovered... but all of it is about is giving us a better platform for debate."

He conceded that as with the earlier version of the site, it was possible to create league table equivalents with the new information, although he stressed it would take a "huge amount of effort".

"If someone wants to go to the trouble... then they will do that.

"(But) we don't think that's what it's about at all."

As a precaution, the new website has been fitted with software that makes it tough for "web robots" to automatically compile statistics.

Headmistress at Waverley's St Catherine's in NSW, Julie Townsend, welcomed the website as a way of improving transparency and accountability, but said it should not be considered a replacement.

Word of mouth and visiting schools and talking to teachers remained the best way to compare schools, she said.

"It can be time-consuming but it's communities and people that make a good school and not necessarily statistics," Dr Townsend said in a statement.

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