Victoria may be called the "Education State" but its public school students receive the least government funding per student in Australia.
The trend has persisted for at least a decade, with every Victorian student receiving $2058 less state and federal funding than the national average in 2014/15.
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Schools funding explained
Why school funding is set to become one of the most important debates in Australian politics.
Each Victorian state school student received $14,612 in combined state and federal funding, while their peers received $16,956 in New South Wales and $19,745 in Western Australia, according to a new Productivity Commission report.
The figures coincide with a heated debate about education funding, with the federal government trying to thrash out a new four-year school funding deal with the states to replace Labor's Gonski agreements.
The report on government services showed that state and territory funding per state school student decreased in South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory, while increasing in the other states.
The figures were seized on by the Turnbull government as evidence that states had shifted the cost of running schools to the Commonwealth.
"Australian families, teachers and students are being misled by some state and territory leaders who say they're for more funding but hypocritically fail to live up to their own lofty rhetoric," Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said.
He said that between 2013-14 and 2014-15, the Coalition government boosted per student funding to government schools by 7.3 per cent and private schools by 5.3 per cent.
During that same period per student funding from state and territory governments rose by just 1.3 per cent for government schools and 2 per cent for private schools.
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Victorian education minister James Merlino said the figures were from the final year of the previous Liberal government and that Labor had since invested $4.6 billion in education in the past two years.
"With this new funding now hitting our schools, Victorian students can expect to see the benefits over the coming years," he said.
It comes as new Australian Bureau of Statistics data, released on Thursday, reveal that the proportion of students attending Victorian government schools has consistently increased since 2014.
State schools enrolled 63.27 per cent of students in 2016, up from 63.03 per cent the previous year.
But Catholic school enrolments steadily decreased over the same period, in a trend that may suggest the Royal Commission's hearing into child sexual abuse have deterred parents. Victorian enrolments dropped from 22.56 per cent of all students in 2015 to 22.29 last year.
Independent school enrolments in Victoria have remained steady since 2014.
Government funding of Victorian private school students continues to grow at a faster rate than funding for public school students. It increased by 5.3 per cent to $9251 per student in 2014/15 compared to a 3.9 per cent increase for state school students.
Trevor Cobbold, a former Productivity Commission economist and convenor of public education lobby group Save Our Schools, said state governments had taken advantage of federal funding increases and scaled back their own funding of public schools.
"This is contrary to the agreements that several of them made when they agreed to the Gonski funding plan and no one has held them to account," he said.
Australian Education Union Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said long-term investment was needed to bring Victorian schools in line with other states.
She reiterated her calls for the federal and state government to honour the final two years of the Gonski agreement.
"Many Victorian schools just don't have the resources they need," she said.