John Minto: So much for schooling that's 'free'

COMMENT

On the last day of the past school year a Form 3 student at an Auckland school was in tears because he did not receive his school report along with his fellow students. The report was withheld because his family still owed $5 in school fees.

He was told his mother would have to come to school to pick it up, when she would be asked for the money, one presumes.

The money the family owed was part of the "school fees" which the Government insists are a school "donation" and not legally owed by the family. The subtle distinction means nothing to the student, but is a political figleaf to preserve the myth that the Government provides free education.

Such stories are not uncommon and are becoming more frequent. Attendance at school balls, receipt of the school magazine and taking home completed technology projects often depend on payment of subject fees and school fees. The pressure is increasing on students and parents to make up the gap between what the Government provides and what the school knows is required for high-quality education.

As students head back to school, parents will be counting the cost of our "free" education system. Most will previously have spent several hundred dollars on a school uniform, and among the notes and notices coming home in the next couple of weeks will be several requests for money.

There will be a stationery bill, subject fees and what amounts to an invoice for several hundred dollars in school fees - oops, sorry, that should be a "school donation". For many there will also be a school calendar listing the fundraising events scheduled for the year. Many parents will take a deep breath, sigh and write another cheque. But they shouldn't.

Last year the Government recorded a $5.5 billion Budget surplus, yet the flow of funds to early-childhood centres, schools, polytechnics and universities over recent years has been minimal, with the quality of public education under threat by not so much creeping as galloping user-pays.

By comparison the private sector is a vigorous and successful lobbyist. In the past four years, for example, funding to private tertiary education providers has increased from just $17 million a year when Labour first took office to well over $150 million this year. This funding has exploded despite serious questions over quality, management and accountability for many of these courses.

Our parents and schools, universities and polytechnics are not good lobbyists. We tend to leave it to the Government - especially a Labour Government - to look after education and to fund it to produce quality for everyone.

So instead of pressuring the Government, our public institutions focus on pressuring parents and students to make up the funding shortfall. This means, for example, that school fees - the so-called donations - have increased rapidly over the past decade while tertiary education fees along with student debt have skyrocketed.

From 1992 to 2001, Government operations funding for each student in secondary schools rose by 30 per cent, but school fundraising (school fees, subject fees, cake stalls and so on) increased by a staggering 173 per cent. Put another way, schools must now find 17 per cent of their operating funding from parents or other sources. Remember we are talking about what we fondly remember as our free education system.

The iniquities which go with such a huge reliance on local fundraising are obvious. Some schools are able to enrol foreign fee-paying students easily and in some cases have hundreds of such students to make ends meet. Others charge several hundred dollars a student in fees and collect all of it while schools in lower-income communities charge much less and collect only a small percentage.

There is a token acknowledgement of this in that schools in lower-income communities receive higher funding for each student from the Government, but this does not bridge the increasing gap.

Instead of that Form 3 boy in tears, it should be the Minister of Education under such pressure from parents and schools that he feels compelled to resign if there is not the kind of increase in school funding in this year's Budget that make incidents such as this a thing of the past.

So it would be nice to think that, when the notices come home requesting payment of school "fees" or "donations", every school also sends home a copy of a letter they have written to the Prime Minister and Minister of Education asking that the myth of free education become a reality in the 2004 Budget.

More financial pressure on the Government and less on our families and students would be a welcome relief.

* John Minto chairs the Quality Public Education Coalition.