TONY Abbott wants public schools to go "independent", with principals and parents in control under the first rollout of a schools revolution.

Promising to take on the education establishment, including unions and the bureaucracy, the Prime Minister pledged during the election campaign to work towards a target of encouraging 25 per cent of public schools to make the switch by 2017.

But the plan is opposed by teachers' unions, who have accused the Coalition of trying to turn public schools into private schools and cover up a cost-cutting agenda.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne predicted the reforms may boost public school enrolments, reversing the trend of parents choosing to go private over public.

"I think it is transformative and, most importantly, it puts students first. Students should be the No.1 priority for any government in terms of education," he said.

"Rubber will start to hit the road in 2014. The philosophy of the Coalition is that we believe principals and properly qualified parents are perfectly capable of making excellent decisions for their local schools."

At the core of the new schools agenda is delivering more public school principals the power to hire staff and set school budgets.

Parents would be given a greater say through school boards, which would set the strategic direction of a school in consultation with local community and business leaders.

But teacher unions remain opposed to the plan. Australian Education Union vice-president Correna Haythorpe said it was a "good question" to ask whether the Coalition wanted to turn public schools into private schools.

"We've seen little to no evidence that autonomy has been successful in terms of improving student achievement or significant changes in enrolment or retention," she said.

"It can have quite negative consequences."

The Coalition's policy states that "independent public schools remain as state government schools but the way in which the school runs more closely resembles that of a non-government independent school".

It also notes that these schools in WA have remained public schools that cannot "be selective about enrolment" or "charge tuition fees".

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten raised concerns during the election campaign that the plan was a smokescreen for gutting the Gonski school reforms which aimed to pump more money into public schools.