The Canberra Times article (“Schools costings ‘misleading’”, p1, July 17) spells out what has been clear for some time. The Government has attempted to portray small schools in as bad a light as possible in order to push their agenda for closing schools.
The costings and savings documents recently released by the Government show they only plan to make savings on some salary related costs and Schools Based Management costs. If just the salary and management costs per student are used to rank the 69 Government primary schools (1=cheapest, 69=most expensive) some of the schools to be closed are in the top 50% of cheapest schools (Isabella Plains (25), Gilmore (33)). Others such as Higgins (39), Giralang (41), Mt Rogers (42) and Cook (44) are cheaper than sixteen other schools which are not being closed.
Can someone else explain this as the Government aren’t willing, or perhaps able, to.
Update: Published in the Canberra Times, July 18th.
