Scrap flawed funding model

Media Release

Scrap flawed funding model

23 September, 2011

PPTA junior vice president Doug Clark has called on the Minister of Education to review the quarterly funding model as it is disadvantaging students in New Zealand secondary schools.

Clark said quarterly funding meant schools faced funding cuts every ten weeks if students left. “This makes it virtually impossible to do any long-term planning,” he said.

“It impacts unfairly on students who stay at school because schools are forced to cut programmes and activities in order to balance the budget,” he said.

“Programmes that involve a higher proportion of schools’ operational budget like computing, IT, media studies and soft and hard materials are most at risk.”

Student movement data from last year, analysed by PPTA, showed lower decile schools would be hit disproportionately hard.

“Decile one schools face average losses of about $120,000 while decile 10 schools may lose, on average, around $20,000,” said Clark.

“This is putting lower decile schools in a precarious position because there is no way they can cope with cuts of that size.”

“Quarterly funding was sold as incentivising schools to retain students when in fact schools should be supporting kids to move on to further training or work. This funding model punishes schools for helping students find options that work better for them,” said Clark.

PPTA is surveying secondary school principals to collect more data on how quarterly funding is affecting them.

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