Educational Finance and Resources

W. F. Dennison

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351041164
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Originally published in 1984. The financial decision-making system is an extremely complicated one; it handles large sums of money but very often teachers feel that little of it filters through to their end of the system. This book explains, analyses and criticises the complexities of the financial decision-making systems in education. It discusses the role of the different bodies and people involved and explores the thinking and conventions which shape their findings. It considers how the effects of financial decisions made in the system are reflected in the curriculum and in the classroom, and puts forward possible alternative methods of finance such as vouchers, loans and privatisation.

Chapter One

THE COSTS OF EDUCATION

PURPOSE, PROCESS AND PRACTICE

In recent years, interest in the organization of educational institutions has risen considerably both from a theoretical standpoint and in relation to the actual practice of managing schools and colleges. Most recently, there has been the example of a DES initiative to improve the in-service training (and by implication the management performance) of senior staff in schools.¹ It is often misleading in such situations to create the impression that before a particular intervention nothing was happening or, in this case, there were no previous efforts to prepare staff for managerial responsibilities. LEAs, colleges etc. have organized courses, introduced workshops etc: less obviously, but probably much more significantly, the attitude of many senior staff has become more inclined towards a management orientation (a clear perspective about organizational objectives and how these are best achieved) through a process of individually motivated self-development – that is, relying upon the most effective mechanism for adult learning. Yet, paradoxically, through all of this increased activity, the fact that a shortage of resources was probably the main catalyst has not stimulated much increased interest in the resource component of educational management. Much less so in FE than in schools, the main thrust of concerns have been towards the curriculum and timetabling, the development of staff, decision-making, inter-personal skills, education law etc. with resource issues as a peripheral, but not central, theme. To some extent this orientation is understandable. The scope for obvious financial decision-making in schools, for example, is small compared to total institutional expenditure. Similarly, the opportunities for financial entrepreneurialship, in the sense of raising money or attracting activities which will produce funds through fee-income are limited and, although less true for college principals, the fact is that the main managerial foci tend to occur elsewhere.

In practice, many education managers work, according to their own perceptions, in non-costed situations. That does not mean they function without financial constraints, but for what in other contexts might be regarded as their main expenditure responsibilities, bills are paid (salaries, heating, building maintenance etc.) by the local authority. Often these managers have little knowledge of the detail of the arrangements. In addition, when they compete for resources the process occurs in non-cost terms – so many teachers to be employed, so much floor space to be used, a specific item of building maintenance to be performed and so on. Occasionally they may not appreciate the nature of the competition in which they are involved. Therefore, the constraints that are applied, and the arbitrations that occur, although made in financial terms elsewhere, translate into volume factors within institutions. However, because they rarely have to consider the financial elements in such issues, educationists can fail to understand their broader resource management responsibilities. Yet, every decision which is made in a school or college carries resource implications, both affecting the alternative use to which resources could have been put and being affected by their availability. Numerous examples are available. A decision in a secondary school to organize eight first-year classes instead of seven will be taken for educational or social reaons, but such a choice (if the school determines it has sufficient teachers to sanction such a change) must impinge upon teacher availability elsewhere in the school, the teaching loads of individual staff and possibly the level of staff performance. If the school uses the desirability of this change to argue for extra staff, only at LEA level will its impact be converted into financial parameters. Resource factors also permeate course development, the training, selection and utilization of all staff, the use of buildings, the organization of institutions: in other words they are central in the whole range of processes which constitute publically provided education. Particularly, in schools, many staff do not realize this component of their work. They are aware, usually only too well, of the adverse effects, as they would see it, of too few resources, but not of the total impingement of resource-based items on the organization and functioning of their institution. The most direct outcome of these situations concerns their ability to exploit resource acquisition and deployment flexibilities which become available. In general terms then, the resource management function within educational management is underdeveloped, and has received too little attention. The main purpose of this book is to correct that particular imbalance by considering the interactions between resource parameters and the practices of educational management, not as peripheral effects, but as central issues in determining educational outcomes.

The remainder of this chapter considers the main problems in defining and assessing resource issues in English education.² Chapter Two develops some aspects of the relationship between education and the economy: chief of which being the slow rate of economic growth and, relatedly, government attempts to decrease public expenditure in general, and educational spending in particular. The impact of the changes that have resulted for the attitudes of educational managers towards resource issues cannot be minimised: they have been forced into a series of coping tactics, with insufficient consideration of the strategies that have to evolve in circumstances of long-term decline. The Chapter attempts to place such developments in the wider context of societal change, particularly in relation to the futures of education and work, in order to highlight potential components in the evolution of appropriate strategies. In Chapter 3 the processes by which resources reach the institutions from government and local authorities are analyzed in relation to the circumstances in which decisionmaking occurs. Particularly in recent years, the main parameters impinging upon decision-making have been provided by the conditions of retrenchment, and these become especially important in relation to the main processes of the schools and colleges, the provision of curricular, as considered in Chapter 4. The enormous range of concerns that have been generated about the deleterious effects of contraction on courses and activities, and likely reductions in their quality, would appear to contradict the criticism that educationists have paid too little attention to resource management. What events since the mid–1970s have demonstrated is the absolute centrality of resource availability to the education service, particularly when developments or changed practices are sought. An awareness which was much less important during expansion. Therefore, while Chapter Two, Three and Four contrast the effects of contraction and growth, they do not attempt to describe in detail the conflicts over spending decisions occurring in so many locations – central government, local authorities and institutions. That would be an impossible task, but more important fails to appreciate the relationships between choices at these levels, and the inherent tensions between those who supply resources and those who provide curricular. It is in relation to these factors that the management function remains deficient. That theme continues in Chapter Five, when factors associated with the utilization of the main resource, the teaching staff, is considered. In Chapter Six resource management at the institutional level provides the focus, while the final Chapter looks at the problem of sustaining education development with static or declining resources.

Essentially, then, this is a study of the formulation and implementation of public policy, as affected by the main parameters of resource acquisition and deployment during a period of rapid change. Yet, even in circumstances such as these, policy is still modified by a series of gradual adjustments. Additional activities are introduced, or alternative approaches developed, within existing organizations. Simultaneously, new institutions might be established. Whichever route provides the change mechanism, the practices that evolve will, most likely, not be too much different from those that existed previously. Therefore, to take the examples of major educational initiatives, the comprehensive schools reflected many of the processes found in the grammar and secondary schools they replaced: similarly, the new institutions of higher education that emerged from the late 1960s onwards performed many of the tasks, in similar ways, to the colleges they subsumed. The transfer of personnel, bringing with them skills and experiences already learned, guaranteed a certain level of continuity for the new organizations. Even when forced to attract a total staff complement, there are few alternatives to recruiting teachers and lecturers with similar experiences elsewhere. Clearly, advantages accrue from such continuity, more so in schools and colleges where clients can remain for several years. A swift change may well work to their disadvantage. More generally, however a process of incremental modification is potentially beneficial because it can represent a useful learning situation for the organization or system. It already has experience of particular processes and arrangements, and as circumstances vary (through changes in knowledge, methodology, environmental factors or staff) it responds, learning from previous arrangements, to arrive at new practices.

Obviously there are disadvantages in such gradualism. For example, often an organization relied on increases in the scope of its activities, through acquiring more resources, to achieve changes in working arrangements. As a result it tried to satisfy evolving needs by establishing new sections and attracting extra staff without altering the main emphasis of other activities. As soon as total resources stop rising then new methods of organizational learning have to be devised in which it adjusts to different, and new demands, by slowly modifying the interests of existing staff and reorganizing the use of facilities. The real danger to public organizations such as schools and colleges (not subject to the immediate pressures of reduced profits or possible liquidation) exists when they do not react with sufficient rapidity to changes in client needs irrespective of their own perception of resource availability. To a certain extent they can disguise the fact of inadequate adjustment, because of the lack of tangible outcomes. Their staff are also advantaged when they are not proved wrong, for they can argue that modifications in practices have been made to reform with changes in demand, when in fact they are no more than corrections for previous errors. Most particularly though, gradualism is flawed by a lack of clarity over priorities. Because all change is no more than a series of modifications, priorities may vary over time, through minor adjustments, but never rec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1. The Costs of Education
• 2. Education and the Economy
• 3. Distributing Resources
• 4. Resources and the Curriculum
• 5. Teachers as a Resource
• 6. Resources, Planning and the Institutions
• 7. Contraction, Privatisation and other Choices
• Index