By Andrew Stevenson
MANY of the schools given greater autonomy as part of a statewide trial run by the NSW Education Department have suffered falling enrolments.
The trial, which was initiated by the previous Labor government, began in March 2010 and has been cited enthusiastically by the NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, who is currently reforming the way public schools are managed.
Falling enrolments... public schools appear to be suffering under the greater autonomy trial.Credit: Janie Barrett
The changes are intended to push decision-making back to schools. Under the ''Local Schools, Local Decisions'' reforms, principals will be able to choose at least 50 per cent of new staff and control 70 per cent of their budget. The reforms are being vigorously opposed by the NSW Teachers Federation, which claims they are being used as cover for budget cuts.
The 47-school trial was reviewed in glowing terms by outside consultants in a report released in January. But data on the department's website this week shows student enrolments actually fell in 20 of the 47 schools between 2011 and 2012.
The trial was run under special arrangements and funding which allowed participating schools to hire more staff. However, declining student numbers would inevitably flow through to cuts to teaching staff levels.
The president of the Teachers Federation, Maurie Mulheron, accused the department of withholding the figures for as long as possible to present a rosy picture of the trial.
''Enrolments are a key indicator of the health of a school,'' Mr Mulheron said. ''There may be a number of reasons for declining enrolments but they are nevertheless a concern. Rising enrolments can be an indicator that a school is well regarded and that people are keen to send their children there as students.
''The 47-school trial has been embraced almost uncritically by the NSW and federal education ministers without any real data. Here is a critical piece of data which should at least cause questions to be asked.''
Among the schools to lose the most students were the Illawarra Senior Campus (69 students) and Alstonville and Grafton high schools (32 students each).
Rather than any solid data, the review had relied uncritically on anecdotal submissions, Mr Mulheron said, noting that it had cited unsourced suggestions of a better ''buzz'' three times in the report. The review also stated that 171 temporary appointments were made to previously full-time positions in the 47 participating schools.
''That is our fundamental concern about Local Schools, Local Decisions,'' Mr Mulheron said. ''We believe that is exactly what the government intends to do: to create a casualised teacher workforce. That's exactly what happened in the 47-school trial, with an average of 3.6 positions at each of the schools. If that was to happen across the school system it would be 8000 casual jobs.''
Mr Piccoli said ''a committed permanent staff will remain the core of every school''. But the intention of the reforms was to give schools ''more say over the best staffing mix to meet student needs within an enhanced school budget''.
''Within their budgets, schools will be able to choose the number and roles of staff and the mix of permanent and temporary positions to best meet local needs and they will have more opportunities to choose how they fill vacant positions,'' he said.
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