Principal stand

By EMMA SUN
A HILLS school principal has slammed the State Government for cutting cash from local school budgets.
Emerald Secondary College principal Wayne Burgess said the cut to the school portion of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) in the 2012/13 budget meant most students in need in the Dandenongs would be worse off.
His school alone is set to lose about $40,000.
The EMA provided money to families with a low socio-economic status, with half the amount going to the family and the other half going to the school to put towards camps and excursion costs for the student.
Mr Burgess said the school would have to make sacrifices in its own budget, by increasing class sizes or dropping a preCAL class, which would have a negative impact on students.
“We’d like to run all the same programs we’re doing but we’re going to be worse off next year,” he said.
“Some of that money went towards fees, which would go towards curriculum areas and buying resources for classes, such as materials for woodworks, so there’ll be fewer resources to work with.”
Mr Burgess said increasing school fees was out of the question as the parents in need wouldn’t be able to pay more.
“It would be asking the most economically vulnerable families to pay more and they can’t do that – it’s not as simple as charging more so we’ll be level,” he said.
“The EMA is not just taking the money off rich schools because if we were rich, we wouldn’t receive money in first place.”
He said he had spoken to 26 other schools in the Dandenong Ranges and only two stood to benefit from the new arrangement – the rest will lose out on a collective $250,000.
Upwey High School would lose about $36,000, though principal Tom Daly hoped they would see more funding for the school next year to make up for the cut.
“The hard part at the moment is that we don’t know what changes there’s going to be to our funding package for next year,” he said.
“If this is just a loss without any commensurate change in our funding, then $36,000 is a lot of money to lose and we’ll need to review how we deploy our resources.
“There have been a lot of people pointing out to the education department that this is a straight line negative, so the ball’s in their court now.”
Monbulk MP James Merlino said abolishing the EMA for schools was one of the most callous decisions the State Government has made to date.
“This was money directed to students from low income families to help pay for books, computers, excursions and other activities and without this EMA, those parents would struggle to afford these basics at school,” he said.
“It is an absolute travesty that the government has targeted our most vulnerable kids and families that are doing it the toughest.”
Gembrook MP Brad Battin said the EMA was actually being increased, with families receiving between $15 and $82.50 extra.
But Mr Merlino said the increase was nothing compared to the school portion that was now gone.
“There’s been a marginal increase in the EMA for parents, but there’s been a total abolishment of the school component so the child’s getting a massive cut in the amount of funding to get them through school.”