Parents dig deeper as the user pays more for a ‘free’ education

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 19

Parents dig deeper as the user pays more for a ‘free’ education

By

GARRY ARTHUR

Schools that are already hardpressed to raise enough money to supplement their state grants may find it even harder to get parents to pay “fees" now that "Consumer” has pointed out that they are not compulsory. The Consumer Council’s journal made the point in recent articles that many schools tend to fudge the issue of the voluntary character of “fees,” and many fail to tell parents they have any choice but to pay up — in full. As it is, many parents either cannot or will not pay. A survey of 20 Christchurch schools by one school committee showed that while some schools get as much as 90 per cent of the "fees” in, others get less than half. The new Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, told “The Press” that he has asked his departmental officers to have another look at a 1980 joint inspectorate report which recommended that primary school grants be raised by nearly 35 per cent. The previous Minister, Mr Wellington, kept that report secret and did not implement it. Mr Marshall says he has looked at it and wants to discuss it with his departmental officers. The necessity for schools — especially primary schools — to rely on community financial support so that they can provide the so-called free education has led to great disparity between schools. Those in well-off areas where most people have jobs can more than double, through “fees” and- fundraising, the amount they get as grants from the state. Those in poor neighbourhoods, where wages are low, unemployment is high, and there are many one-parent families, have trouble raising a couple of thousand dollars a year. The differences sometimes show ' up in the quantity and quality of the facilities provided for schoolchildren.

Although schools’ state funds are distributed with scrupulous fairness by education boards, the disparity in community funding means that some schools have halls, pools, computers, and other equipment not provided by the state, while others scrape by with

the bare minimum of basic facilities.

Inequality of facilities, equipment, and materials among Christchurch schools is “phenomenal” in the opinion of Russell Garbutt, chairman of Burwood School’s committee.

He did a telephone survey of 20 other schools as a check on Burwood’s performance in fundraising, and in the hope of finding ways of getting more money for the school. He found that inequality was reflected in the “fees” that schools felt able to extract from parents — ranging from $3 a family at North New Brighton to a whopping $4B at Cashmere.

(Seven years ago Cashmere School’s fee was $lO a family, but in response to a questionnaire parents decided they would rather pay a hefty annual “fee” than run cake stalls). Mr Garbutt found a lot of gloom and despondency among school principals. “One principal was almost suicidal,” he recalls.

Some principals told him that they could — and did — live within their No. 1 account (the board’s annual grant); others said it was impossible, and that it was hundreds of dollars, and in several cases up to $2OOO, short of what was necessary. “I’m sure that all schools could live within that No. 1 account,” says Russell Garbutt, “but all school committees would then be unhappy with the facilities at their schools. Committees raise money for what they feel the parents

expect as an acceptable basic. f ‘lt’s a problem of balancing what your expectations are and the reality of the slice of the national cake, considering the over-all dropping rolls.” His own view is that the greatest return would be gained from things like lower teacher-pupil ratios, remedial reading, and oneron-one teaching where required. But he also believes that the definitions of basic requirements should be closely re-examined. “For example,” he says, “it may cost more to run a base duplicator than a photo-copier.” Photo-copiers are not yet considered to be basic primary school equipment. Teachers often feel obliged to dip into their own pockets to buy teaching. materials. Burwood School Committee recognises this, and gives each teacher $25 a year for such incidentals, as pens for overhead projectors and other out-of-pocket expenses. “Funding depends on what you are aiming to get for your kids, and most are trying to get as much as they can,” says Mr Hugh Brown, principal of Windsor School, which has a roll of between 270 and 280.

He believes that fund-raising is a good thing for the community, but that schools are being asked to find too much money. ‘lt used to be called a free school system,” he notes wryly. Mr Brown has taught at Aranui,

Wainoni, Central Brighton, and Lyttelton, and is convinced that schools in 4 the poorer areas are disadvantaged by their inability to raise money in the community. Windsor School has to raise about $l5 a head in addition to the grant. It has a photo-copier and needs to raise money for paper. The school grounds are bare in winter, so the school committee is raising $4OOO for an irrigation system. The pool is not big enough, and another will have to be provided by the parents, subsidised by the board. Mr Brown says the school has to spend $5 to $lO a head oh library books in addition to money granted. Mr Brown does not classify any of the facilities bought from the N 0.2 account as other than essential for the ordinary running of the school. “I don’t think many schools have got equipment or extras that are not necessary,” he says. Mr Leo Hayward, chairman of the primary school principals’ committee, feels that in many communities the funds provided are “just adequate” for basic essentials. He is principal of Heaton Street Intermediate, which, as an intermediate school, gets a much higher basic grant than primary schools. This is because it has extra facilities such as metalwork, woodwork, sewing, cooking, and art departments.

Even so, says Mr Hayward, “all of us want just a little bit more,” and Heaton Street parents contribute another $6O to $7O a family for additional materials in those areas.

The Canterbury Education Board gets a bulk grant of money from Wellington, based on the total roll for its area, and the board’s finance officer divides it up among the schools, after putting some aside for grass-cutting and some other general purposes. Schools may spend their grants only on cleaning and sanitation, repairs and maintenance, and requisites such as paper and pens. They also get a grant for heat, light, and water, and any extra costs in those areas are reimbursed.

Money raised from the parents by way of “fees” and “levies” (both of which are voluntary), and through the fund-raiding activities of the pupils and parents, goes into the No. 2 account, and the school committee can spend it on whatever it thinks necessary. If the grant is all spent, a school will have to dip into its No. 2 account to meet expenses. Most schools cannot live within their grant, and have to raise extra money through school fairs, selling lunches and stationery at a profit, holding bottle drives, selling manure and seeds, and in some cases running regular housie nights. “The previous Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, always said that the state supplied enough

money for the basic necessities,” says Mr David Wilson, general manager of the Canterbury Education Board. “That’s debatable of course. “I was a party to a school inspectorate report on it in 1980. The Government wouldn’t release our recommendations, but they have since been released to the School Committees Federation under the Official Information Act. “We recommended a more than 30 per cent increase in the grants to schools, but they are getting less than we recommended. Schools have had increases to cover inflation, and two or three years ago the Minister made a once-only grant to school committees. “A year later he gave a second ‘once-only’ grant, and that gave schools a bit of a booster. Without it they would have been down the drain. “But apart from that, schools are still working on the 1974 level with just the annual increase to account for inflation.” The joint inspectorate report said in 1980 that school committees were spending considerable amounts in excess of the grant, mainly on classroom resources. They were doing so because schools’ fixed costs were higher than provided for in the grant structure, because curricula changes, such as the new science syllabus and new emphasis on remedial work, were not specifically provided for in the grant, and because changes in teaching methods had resulted in schools spending substantial additional amounts to buy paper. The joint inspectorate recommended that the grant be restructured to correct the situation. It said the basic grant should go up by 35.6 per cent, the library grant by 30 per cent, the free textbook grant by 30 per cent, the swimming pool grant by 66 per cent, and the special purposes grant by 23 per cent. This over-all 34.8 per cent increase would have cost the taxpayer another $1.97 million in 1980 — making a total grant of $7.62 million to all primary and intermediate schools instead of the $5.65 million they then received.