Speaking at the South Coast Labour Council conference yesterday afternoon, Mr Mulheron said students would be disadvantaged if the Coalition did not commit to the full six years of funding promised by the Labor government.

Mr Abbott previously said the Coalition would match Labor's funding for the next four years.

Mr Mulheron, former principal of Keira High School, said this would be detrimental to schools because two-thirds of the $14.5 billion Gonski funding - $10 billion of which is from the federal government - comes in the last two years of the reforms.

"Education is not a neutralised issue. All Abbott has promised is a four-year funding plan.

"He needs to match it dollar for dollar."

He said schools in the Cunningham and Throsby electorates would be around $30 million worse off each under the funding promised by Abbott.

Representatives from other education unions also spoke at the conference about issues affecting their industry.

Pat Forward from the Australian Education Union said more funding needed to be put into TAFE institutes nationwide.

"TAFE is the only education sector which has had, for almost 20 years, year on year declines in government funding," she said.

The "dire" situation campuses were faced with would be made worse if changes were made to allow private entities to compete with TAFE providers, she said.

Genevieve Kelly from the National Tertiary Education Union New South Wales said one of the problems facing universities was the casual academic workforce.