Posted by: Rob
on 22, Jul, 2010
We wonder how many Treasury officials send their kids to state schools or use our public health services? We wonder how many have lived on benefits or had jobs that got their hands dirty, or in which they have had to face the consequences of the stupid policy proposals they seek to inflict on the population?
Treasury advice to the National government on funding for education includes the proposal to remove the automatic adjustments to base funding which occur through demographic and other projected changes and fund these changes within the allocation of new money each year or make a case for additional funding on a year by year basis.
School rolls are projected to rise to about 2024. These are demographic changes which increase operations funding and staffing levels in a predictable manner. Currently the funding for school staffing and operations is automatically adjusted to fund the increased cost this creates.
Posted by: Observer
on 21, Jun, 2010
MP Roger Douglas is trumpeting the fact that his private members’ bill aiming to bring in bulk funding and site contracts has been drawn from the parliamentary ballot. According to Douglas, his “Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill would, if passed, enable Boards of Trustees to manage their own affairs by having full control over the employment of teachers at their school." He is seems to be under the illusion that currently teachers' pay is set by “Ministry of Education bureaucrats dictating salaries from their offices in Wellington." Even though he was once a Minster of Finance, he appears to have forgotten that salaries are in fact dictated by the amount of money the government sets aside for that purpose. A zero pay offer made by boards not the government is still a zero offer.
The Labour Party, the Greens and the Maori party oppose bulk funding and before the election the National Government indicated that it would not re-introduce bulk funding. It will be very important to keep the politicians honest when this bill makes its way into the House. A final thought: Will the ACT Party also be proposing that MPs salaries be set by a panel of taxpayers rather than being “dictated by the bureaucrats on the Higher Salaries Commission?"
If you want to know how destructive and divisive bulk funding was - watch A Civilised Society.
Posted by: Silverback
on 01, Jun, 2010
Have you seen the part of Vote: Education that changes the ops funding calculation for secondary schools?
From 2011 the ops funding will be recalculated every quarter and secondary schools will have the ops funding adjusted accordingly.
The MoE website says that this is an incentive to schools to improve their retention of students.
What?
Apparently in the mind of the Ministry schools now influence the school leaving rate more than:
The state of national economy.
Or the state of the local economy
Or the needs of employers to recruit apprentices or employees in the mid year.
Or the armed forces or police with their mid-year intakes.
Or population movements
Or the collapse of a local industry
In effect schools are going to be fined for having their kids sorted and ready to move on to the next step in life.
Made the cut for intake into the Navy, Angela? Excellent we’ll fine the school when you leave.
An apprentice for your engineering firm, sir? To help take up that free trade opportunity in China? Sorry, can’t help. If we give you a student in the middle of the year, we’ll be fined.
Apparently the only time kids can leave school for any reason is at the end of the year. At any other times schools will have their funding cut. They’ll be fined.
So a 4% increase in secondary ops funding, less the 20% increase in GST, plus the reduction in ops funding due to the new calculation method equals no increase for secondary schools.
Any school unfortunate enough to have students leave during the year will probably be worse off than they were before this budget.
I’d love you to tell me that I have got it wrong, but I think that the only way I can have this wrong is if there is an as yet undetected proposal to fully compensate schools for the GST increase beyond the 4% rise announced in the budget.
I wonder which bright spark gave the Government this piece of stunning policy advice?
Perhaps the Minister has been sold a pup by a disingenuous official who has devised a way to use a superficially appealing phrase like “incentive for schools to improve their engagement with students” to claw back the money that the GST has not already got.
It just has to be stopped somehow.
What thoughts has PPTA got?
