Education Minister wants to tweak law to open up rich schools’ facilities to public students
Education Minister Rob Stokes is pushing elite private schools to open up their multimillion-dollar sports and arts facilities to public school students — and is prepared to tweak the Education Act to make it happen. POLL: Is this a good idea?
Education Minister Rob Stokes is pushing elite private schools to open up their multimillion-dollar sports and arts facilities to public school students — and is prepared to tweak the Education Act to make it happen.
He has outlined a radical proposal to encourage rich schools to allow other students and community members to access playing fields, swimming pools and gyms, along with theatres and libraries.
It is aimed at reducing duplication and ensuring the best facilities are on offer for all students regardless of their school. “That’s certainly something we are exploring with private schools,” Mr Stokes told The Saturday Telegraph.
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“There are a couple of regulatory hurdles that we need to overcome.”
Among them is changing regulations which prevent private schools receiving government money to recover the costs of opening facilities.
“The challenge then if they’re getting small amounts of money to clean halls and so forth, after a community group has used it, is whether that offends those not-for-profit provisions — we’re working through that.”
Mr Stokes said the pay-off for private schools — which charge parents fees of up to $40,000 a year — was in community goodwill when they wanted to expand.
“I know one of the challenges private schools have in developing their facilities have is that the surrounding communities can often object on the basis that they say, well we’re getting the extra traffic, where is the benefit for us?
“By opening these facilities up and sharing them with the community, that means the community is much more likely to be open to expansion if there is a wider social benefit.”
Association of Independent Schools of NSW CEO Dr Geoff Newcombe said some schools already made their facilities available to other schools of their own accord.
But he said not all independent schools had “lavish” facilities.
“On average, more than 90 per cent of the cost of capital works in independent schools is met by parents, fundraising and donations, with this figure at 100 per cent for most higher SES schools,” he said.
“The notion that all independent schools have lavish facilities is simply a stereotype, with most having facilities not markedly different to other schools nearby.”
NSW P&C President Susie Boyd said she would welcome private schools being opened up to public students.
“We would also add that if private schools refuse to open up to their community, they should be denied further funding,” she said.
Mr Stokes said the government’s school infrastructure plan was specifically looking at encouraging more joint-use projects.
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