Page 3650 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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Recommendation 7 reads:
That a Working Party consisting of representatives of non-government schools, the Department of Education and Training and the Treasury, and with the power to co-opt experts, be formed to devise an instrument and the procedures to determine how funding on a needs basis can be distributed.
The Australian Teachers Union response to this recommendation is that this process must be an open one. The Council of P and C Associations' position is that it opposes this particular recommendation. Council has recommended that all funding of ACT non-government schools be needs based. This will ensure that the most poorly resourced non-government schools would be better funded, while the better resourced schools would receive less government support. (Extension of time granted) Funding models in other States recommend funding by needs of students, needs of schools and on a per capita basis. It is acknowledged that any major proposed changes in these areas should be open to public review and scrutiny.
Recommendation 8 says:
In any examination of the adjustment of costs for subsidising the transport of children to schools, particularly out of their area or beyond the nearest appropriate non-government school, options for reducing services or the cost of such services to the public purse, should be devised.
The Australian Teachers Union supports this recommendation, while the Council of P and C Associations is not opposed to it. The Berkeley report has raised the very vexed question of the subsidisation of transport costs for students attending non-government schools. It is clear that non-government school students receive the greatest benefit in terms of the provision of school bus and route bus services at a heavily subsidised cost by the community. It is noted that this same privilege extends to government school students attending out of area schools. While the discontinuation of school bus services in favour of route bus services is impractical, ways need to be devised to recover more of the cost of transporting these students to and from school.
Recommendation 9 states:
It is recommended that the funds available under the interest subsidy scheme be at least maintained in real terms and that consideration be given to increasing the amount provided annually.
The Australian Teachers Union opposes this recommendation, as does the Council of P and C Associations. Council notes that ACT non-government schools continue to be provided with free land, a subsidy which no other government in Australia provides, while the Australian Teachers Union notes that the public financial support for capital works and the provision of land has been a major factor in the disproportionate growth of the non-government sector in the ACT. It is appropriate that both groups' responses compare these arrangements with the current dearth of renovation and refurbishment in government schools.
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