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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3814 ..
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION
QUESTION NUMBER 451
Voluntary Parent Contributions
MS TUCKER - asked the Minister for Education and Training on notice on 2 September 1997:
In relation to parent voluntary contributions to schools -
(1) Noting that in some schools, the parent voluntary contributions are collected by the P&C and may be accounted for in a different way, can you provide a breakdown, on a term/semester basis, of the income received by all schools from these contributions (not including the money from subject levies).
(2) What is the breakdown, in percentages, of parents who have paid full voluntary contributions.
(3) What is the breakdown of the range of charges for subject levies across the different school sectors, including information on how parental/student inability to pay these levies, particularly in High Schools and Colleges, affects student course choices and options.
MR STEFANIAK - the answer to Ms Tucker's question is:
(1) See Attachments A (contributions to 30 June 1997) and B (contributions for 1996).
(2) Some schools do not have voluntary contributions but have special collections such as library funds using P&C trust accounts. Because of this and the various methods and ways in which schools collect contributions and levies, it is not possible to provide a meaningful figure. However indications are that a large majority of parents, including carers, support their government school in some financial way.
(3) Each school manages its own curriculum and subject needs within the department's guidelines. Government policy is that no child has his or her subject choice limited by the non-payment of subject levies. A breakdown of subject levies for each school was provided to Ms McRae in the answer to Question No. 384 and the same information now has been provided to Ms Tucker.
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