Schools under pressure

Tech savvy: Korumburra Primary School Grade 6 student Liiam Miller has been road testing one of the school’s Acer Aspire ‘netbooks’.

CASH-STRAPPED schools are using the guarantee of parents’ tax returns to buy computers.
Principals say their schools are suffering from a massive shortfall in funding and have used the Federal Government’s Education Tax Refund program – which allows parents to claim on out of pocket expenses for computers and related items – to make sure their schools have enough tech equipment to go around.
Korumburra Primary School principal Bill Jeffs has drafted a letter for parents of children entering Grade 4 next year, asking them to lease Acer Aspire ‘netbooks’. Buying the computers without parental help is beyond the school’s modest means.
The children will own the $840 computers at the end of Grade 6. They will be loaded with $900 worth of software, courtesy of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. 
“We’ve had a public meeting and the people who attended were heavily in favour of us having these netbook computers for the kids,” Mr Jeffs said.
Parents can claim expenses back through the Education Tax Refund.
The maximum claim allowable is $780 for each eligible child in primary school (with a refund of $390) and $1558 for each eligible child in secondary school (with a refund of $779).
“All we’ve done is said that’s up to them to investigate, but we don’t give advice about tax matters. Our understanding is you can claim a lot of this money back, but you’ll have to find out from the tax department,” Mr Jeffs said.
Leongatha Primary School has a similar scheme, but has incorporated the expense for computers into its ‘voluntary contributions’ payments.
The parents’ payments have risen sharply in the past two years, but – because they now incorporate ICT (information communications technology) fees – can also be claimed back, in part, under the Education Tax Refund.
Principal Rob Higgins said the previous state government had left his school woefully underfunded when it came to computer equipment.
“The previous government would say, you got grants for costs related to computers. My computer grants were $6000 a year. That was for $120 computers. To turn those over and keep them state-of-the art…the mathematics just didn’t add up,” he said.
“But that was the previous government. We’re in a brave new world now.”
A written statement from the school council said funds were resourced from “all possible sources”. “Next year we have restructured our parental contributions so that we can provide the maximum resources for the school while allowing the parents the opportunity to receive the optimum rebates to which they are entitled,” the statement said.
“Many of our families who receive Education Maintenance Allowance will only need to contribute $20 for the whole year. Those families who are eligible for the Federal Government Education Tax Offset will contribute $250 per annum but will receive half of this back in rebate.”
Victorian Education Union president Mary Bluett was not surprised by the revelations.
“Victoria remains the lowest funded state in the nation and there is a growing gap between what the government funds and what the community expects of a 21st century education,” she said.
Ms Bluett said there was a “growing gap” between the haves and the have-nots in the school community.
“Those schools in communities that have the capacity to pay are able to set much higher voluntary contributions than those in poorer communities,” she said.
“Some principals don’t set any voluntary fees because they know parents would struggle to pay and they would go without things because they wanted to look after their schools.
“The tax rebate stuff is welcome but the underlying issue is the level of funding for our government primary schools and secondary schools, and the need to significantly boost it.”
The State Government’s new Education Minister, Martin Dixon, declined to answer questions from The Star, including whether more funding would be provided to Victorian schools under the Coalition.

Short URL: http://www.thestar.com.au/?p=651

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