The O’Farrell government has committed itself to working towards decentralising power within the NSW public school system with a series of initiatives designed to give schools more control over their spending.
Commentators have noted that the NSW education system is more centrally controlled compared to the rest of Australia. In Victoria, school principals can choose their own staff, and WA schools have the opportunity to operate independently with substantial freedom. We have observed how several government initiatives are calling for greater autonomy in individual schools, and by allocating more power to schools, including greater responsibility for school budgets, the state government is hoping to improve student performances. Teacher unions are, however, critical of the reforms calling them part of a government strategy to cut costs.
At the moment, the Department of Education and Communities (DEC) is carrying out a two-year pilot program of school based management in public schools around NSW. The program was launched by the previous government and will continue under the new government until the end of 2012. With 47 schools taking part of the program, DEC is aiming to decentralise education system power and provide individual schools with more freedom of decision making in areas such as budgets and staffing.
In an independent review commissioned by the NSW Government, principals of all 47 schools state that the school based management trial had been successfully implemented and that the program had led to more flexibility, agency and actual improvements at their schools.
In addition to the two-year pilot program, NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, is currently promoting ''Local Schools, Local Decisions”, a program also working towards handing over more power to public schools. Mr Piccoli hopes to announce new rules for greater school autonomy early next year, which would be implemented in 2013. And from 2012, 162 schools will have access to special federal government funding under the Empowering Local Schools Initiative. Earlier this year, the Australian government announced that it will be providing funding of $69.1 million over the next four years to the initiative.
Not all parties to the NSW education system are supporting the NSW government’s ideas of decentralisation. This month, the NSW Teachers Federation rejected DEC’s evaluation of the pilot program and called the review “little more than an opinion survey and a political deceit’’ based on the argument that the government’s agenda behind the program is to reduce overall funding for public schools by hiding cost-cut plans behind increased local school decision making.
“We oppose the trial because it is so flawed as to be meaningless. This is about trying to save millions of dollars. It will mean the loss of teaching positions and school closures,” Federation President Bob Lipscombe stated yesterday.
However, Federal Minister for School Education Peter Garrett said the pilot program's success proves that school autonomy can succeed on a national level.
"Where schools have a big say in decision making they do see significant improvements in results in their schools. So I'm very committed to supporting the states as they roll-out empowerment and providing greater decision making opportunities for principals in the schools, that's why we're committing nearly half a billion dollars," Mr Garrett said.
The two-year program is a trial and whether or not it will be implemented on a more permanent basis in other NSW public schools is still uncertain. However, the current trend for decentralising public school decision making, which we now see at both state and federal government level, suggests that schools will experience a period of greater responsibility for budgets and spending.
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