This was done while the Commonwealth increased overall funding by $1 billion.

The federal government increased funding to Tasmanian schools to $24 million in 2014-15 while the state government decreased its funding by $7.3 million over the same period, according to a Productivity Commission Report on Government Services.

Australian Education Union state president Helen Richardson urged the state government to more aggressively pursue from the federal government $100 million for the final two years of the Gonski funding package.

“The previous state budget cuts, combined with Tasmania’s high level of need, means no other state needs full Gonski funding more than us,” she said.

The state government has budgeted its share of the Gonski funding from 2018-19 in its forward estimates.

Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the government had invested a record $1.48 billion into education in the 2016-17 budget.

The Productivity Commission report showed that Tasmanian government school year 12 retention rates crept up to 73.5 per cent in 2015.

The commission’s analysis showed that year 12 retention in Tasmania had moved up incrementally over the past three years.

The new figure puts it on par with the 2009 retention rate of 73 per cent, which itself was a massive jump from the 62.2 per cent rate the year before.

Mr Rockliff said the rise was evidence that the government’s plan to make students stay at school longer was working.

The Tasmanian government spent $17,188 per student in 2014-15, compared to $16,724 in 2013-14.

There were 28,700 Tasmanians taking part in a vocational education and training program in 2015, with 8900 of them aged between 18 to 24 years.

This was an overall drop on the year before.