Fees debate rages

By Sarah Schwager
A LIST of voluntary school fees, published in the Herald Sun on Monday, has received mixed reaction in Greater Dandenong.
A Department of Education and Training spokeswoman said the figures, which were obtained from the Department through Freedom of Information, had to be looked at cautiously.
“Voluntary fees in schools mean exactly that. They’re voluntary,” she said.
“If any parent feels they are being forced to pay they should contact the Department.”
She said voluntary fees were not spent on core subjects but on elective subjects such as music lessons and excursions.
She said average figures for the state were better indications, with voluntary fees per student in Victoria at about $100 per student.
“Voluntary fees on average are only 1.3 per cent of any government school’s budget,” she said.
Dandenong High School principal Martin Culkin said the fees were set by the school council and included both voluntary and compulsory charges.
“It’s set at the lowest possible level by the school council … within Department of Education and Government guidelines,” Mr Culkin said.
Springvale Secondary College principal Mark Kosach, whose voluntary school fees were at the lower end of Greater Dandenong high schools, said the parent groups at the schools were struggling, which reflected the low fees.
“We don’t press parents who are struggling,” Mr Kosach said.
“We ask them to contribute but where they can’t, we don’t push it.
He said while the school would like to have higher contribution rates, they did not force the issue.
“We do the best we can with the support we get,” he said.
But Dandenong’s Lyndale Primary School principal Ruth Knight said the Lyndale figures were not the school’s voluntary fees at all, but the children’s requisite and covered things like pens, books and clag.
Ms Knight said this way parents did not have to buy anything themselves.
She said anything voluntary, such as excursions, was contributed during the year.
“We can ask if they want to partake in an excursion. They don’t have to.”
She said the school, with 412 students, had asked if anyone wanted to give a donation to the grounds but only a few did.
Ms Knight said in terms of the children’s requisite, it was “an equity issue.”
“The children feel good that they’ve got the same pencil case as the child next to them.”
She said other schools might send children off with booklists and have voluntary fees on top of that.
“We don’t want to have to make them pay,” she said.