Released reports confirm school funding woes

Media Release

Released reports confirm school funding woes - NZSTA

New Zealand School Trustees Association is welcoming reports that back up what it has been saying to the Government for a number of years – schools need more money.

The reports, “Review of Schools Operations funding: Non teaching Staff Workforce” undertaken by the Ministry and sector groups including NZSTA and the “Pilot Survey of School Finances” undertaken independent consultant Polson Higgs, have just been released by the Minister of Education.

President Lorraine Kerr says the reports confirm that boards operational funding is inadequate and that this inadequacy is currently being “propped up” by locally raised funds.

Key issues from the advisory group involved in the teaching staff workforce report included:

* Schools were underfunded during the 1990s and therefore had to make compromises in the area of non teaching staff. Schools require catch-up funding to compensate for this historical shortfall

* Additional resourcing is required to meet increased costs driven by the growth of, and shifts in, the nature of the non teaching staff workforce and implementation of collective agreements, and

* The majority of members of the group recommend that the way schools are funded be revisited.

Lorraine Kerr says these key issues arose from findings that there has been growth in the non-teaching workforce from 16,000 in 1990 to 26,000 in 2006, which boards have had to fund from operations grants/locally raised funds.

“Teacher aides alone have increased in number by 29% since 1999,” she says.

“The non-teaching staff workforce report clearly identifies the increased number of non teaching staff, changing needs of schools, the impact and implementation of collective agreement settlements, and the associated flow on costs, have all been factors which have led to the current situation of gross underfunding.

“While it has been very disappointing that the non-teaching staff workforce report has taken 18 months to be released, it is even more disappointing that no action has been taken by the previous or current government to address what is now a critical funding issue.”

Lorraine Kerr says the Polson Higgs report on the pilot survey of school finances confirms much of the issues raised in the non-teaching staff workforce report including:

* Confirmation that schools are operating in an environment where many stakeholders have high and increasing expectations of what they will provide, and that these increased expectations are creating additional financial pressures for schools

* Many NZ schools raise substantial levels of funds from non government sources

* Without those locally raised funds most schools would make operating deficits, if they did not reduce expenditure

* Additional time/cost pressures are created by support staff collective agreements that have incremental and inflation increases which may not be matched in operations grant inflation adjustments

* Principals and executive officers are spending increasing time on grant applications for contestable funding and external funding sources

* Increased requirements for storage and management of students’ records is increasing administration costs.

Lorraine Kerr says the operations grant situation is actually significantly worse than that confirmed in the released reports given the current financial squeeze.

“The recession is making it significantly harder for boards to continue to raise funds locally at current levels when traditional funding sources contract or dry up.

“And this is happening at a time when boards are expected to shoulder greater responsibility and accountability by the Government, as well as meeting increasing expectations on the part of the school community,” says Lorraine Kerr.

“The evidence is very clear, If NZ wants a world class system of education with an expectation of all students achieving to the highest level, then funding school operations grant at an adequate level must be a priority.”

ENDS

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