Curriculum arrangements and resource allocation in secondary schools

Phil McKenzie
Ross Harrold

Abstract

A means by which a nexus can be drawn between a secondary school's educational operations and its resource allocation is suggested. Resources associated with the school's teaching and its learning activities are “mapped”, then compared, on a grid of the school's curriculum arrangements. If it is a non-government (private) school, the analysis is made by comparing average with “breakeven” class sizes; if it is a government (public) school, the analysis compares the patterns of teaching class periods with pupil periods. The analysis identifies implicit resource cross-subsidisation among groups of students who take different levels and types of subjects. There is no intention that cross-subsidisation should be eliminated but decision makers are challenged to justify the revealed pattern of subsidisation in terms of the educational and equity purposes of their school.