Bulk funding of education: An old idea recycled

Bulk funding for schools is very much in the news at present, with stop work meetings throughout the country recently to allow teacher unions to discuss the issues and/or express their opposition.

It is said that in complex areas like education there are no new ideas – there are only old ideas that get recycled. Partly that is because the problems are complicated and sooner or later all ideas run out of steam so something different has to be tried. But it is also partly that we humans resist learning from history. That is a subject on its own that I will opine on at a later date.

Needless to say the teacher unions are adamantly opposed to bulk funding and always have been. Some of their reasons have some validity but the ‘back story” is really concern about protecting teacher employment.

So what about bulk funding as an option? I should say that I spent about 6 years as the Chair of a Board of Trustees of a secondary school so have some background.

In principle it is a great idea and absolutely in line with National Party philosophy. It is cheap to administer and gives Boards of Trustees the maximum possible flexibility to apply resources where they are most needed. I am sure you could find examples of schools which have benefitted or which would benefit from having that flexibility.

But there are some downsides to consider and they mostly centre on the ability of Boards of Trustees to carry through bulk funding in a thoughtful and sensible way. Boards of Trustees are elected not appointed – and you only have to look at the local body model to understand what a lottery the election process can be. You can’t guarantee that you will get a Board that is both competent and has the time to do the job properly. Dare I say it there are also some very high profile people who get elected to have something to add to their CV, and really do not have the time or commitment to do the job properly. “Principal capture” is also a problem for Boards. – Boards naturally rely on the Principal, who is the expert educator in the group, for advice. But the advice can be partial or poorly thought through.

The main risk with bulk funding is that money will get channelled into a small number of priority areas, leaving other areas underfunded, without the implications being understood. The classic example I suppose is to increase the operating budget, eg more equipment and classroom support, and to fund this by having larger class sizes, ie fewer teachers. In some cases that might actually be a good solution – in others it might be a disaster. It really does vary from situation to situation.

One answer to some of the problems pointed to above is to put some guideline constraints in place, so that if a Board wants to do some things that go beyond the constraints they need to have their ideas vetted by the Ministry of Education. However this runs the risk of creating a whole series of exceptions which may not be coherent or consistent. It is also likely to be expensive and the questions is whether the resources expended might be better expended in other ways. There are also likely to be fierce arguments about where you draw the line on the constraints. If it all gets too hard you find yourself back where you started – no bulk funding after all.

So is it all just too hard?

Not necessarily. I think there are enough potential advantages to give it another shot but I would advocate:

• Introducing bulk funding in stages which gradually extend the boundaries. This minimises the initial risk and enables a check to be made on benefits.

• Do some initial trials in selected schools so there is some experience available before bulk funding goes comprehensively live?

Watch this space I guess.

Start a discussion on this topic…

This is Bas Walker’s first post on GrownUps.  Please look out for his next article, containing his Beachside Ponderings.