Schools waste claim demands response
THE claim by school leaders that hundreds of millions of pounds are being wasted on bureaucracy instead of getting to schools deserves a detailed response from the Welsh Government.
With schools facing cuts to their budgets that are having an impact in classrooms, it is hardly surprising that teachers will turn their attention to money in the education budget that is used for other purposes.
When it comes to the education budget, the starting point must always be that as much money as possible is available for teaching. As with other public services, though, an element of backroom activity will always be necessary. The service could not progress without a team of advisers to ensure that new developments in educational theory are taken on board, and that standards are monitored to ensure that every school can fulfil their potential.
But the anecdotal evidence of multiple form-filling, for example, put forward by the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru needs to be examined robustly.
Teachers have complained for years that their ability to teach pupils is being hampered by the need to spend a significant amount of time on administrative duties. Every effort must be made to reduce any non-productive work to a minimum. On the other hand, it is important that teachers provide meaningful feedback to pupils and their parents about how their performance is progressing.
It is easy for the parties concerned to take entrenched positions: teachers will naturally resent any element of the education budget spent outside the classroom, while backroom staff will insist that their roles are vital. Until recent years, schools, while having a considerable degree of independence, were at least nominally controlled by local authorities: the chain of command was quite straightforward. Now, there is an extra administrative layer: the regional consortia, set up because of the view that councils weren’t performing their administrative and supervisory roles as well as might be expected.
Perhaps, at a time when a new national curriculum is due to be rolled out, it is the right time for AMs to take a further look at the administration of our schools, and through rigorous scrutiny see whether current arrangements are fit for purpose. If they’re not, then for the sake of our schools and those who attend them, action must be taken.