Western Australia is moving towards giving all public schools independence so they can manage their own money, staffing and programs, the state's education minister says.
Minister Liz Constable and WA Premier Colin Barnett announced on Monday that 73 public schools would gain Independent Public School status at the start of 2012.
Under the program, launched with 34 schools in 2010, individual schools are able to make decisions about their curriculums, staffing, school resources, educational programs and expenditure.
Another 63 schools joined the scheme in 2011 and 196 more applied this year to join and be assessed by an independent panel.
Of those, 109 had been approved, with 73 to join the scheme in 2012 and the rest in 2013.
Dr Constable said she believed joining the scheme should remain a voluntary and joint decision by principals, staff, parents and local communities.
But she said the scheme was heading in the direction of all schools eventually being Independent Public Schools with 40 per cent of the state's public schools having already applied.
"I think we should do it in a very careful stepwise manner and roll it out so we don't get ahead of ourselves here and let every school establish itself as an independent school."
Dr Constable said adding about 70 schools a year seemed to be the right number so that adequate support could be provided to help schools manage their own finances and operate more independently.
"We now have one in four schools freed to set their own directions - all with the support of families and communities seeing the benefits for their children," Dr Constable said.
Mr Barnett said the program had been an outstanding success and the state was leading Australia in giving schools greater autonomy and involving their communities more.
"The rest of Australia is looking at this program and realising that Western Australia is leading the country by a long way in the reform of our government school system," he said.
Front page
RSS Feed