Competitive grants in autonomous public schools : How school principals are labouring for public school funding
Journal article
Rowe, Emma and Langman, Sarah. (2024). Competitive grants in autonomous public schools : How school principals are labouring for public school funding. The Australian Educational Researcher. 52, pp. 899-917. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00746-9
Authors | Rowe, Emma and Langman, Sarah |
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Abstract | This paper examines competitive grants for public schools, as a form of additional funding from the government. We draw on interviews with principals from different states in Australia to examine systemic impacts of competitive grants for public schools, exploring this in relation to school autonomy. Public school principals are labouring to generate additional school funding via competitive applications from the traditional state government, to supplement their core or regular government funding. The competitive applications are to fund what many would consider rudimentary or fundamental resources, such as school infrastructure and student wellbeing programs. For the interviewed principals, the drive to generate more funding was anchored within significant government funding shortfalls in public schools. The majority of interviewees did not find the funding model to be ‘needs-based’ or responsive. Autonomous public schools presented many paradoxes and contradictions, particularly in under-funded contexts; whilst on one hand, principals are tasked with managing their budgets, the majority experienced the environment as highly inflexible and often punitive, laden with bureaucratic red tape. The majority of interviewees expressed notions of responsibilisation for generating additional funds. In this context, we found that competitive funding applications increase school principal work intensification, with principals spending excessive time labouring to generate additional funding via competitive grant applications, in order to fund essential school projects. The labour involved in completing time-demanding funding applications supplants their traditional responsibilities and is critically reshaping their role as a school principal, to one of ‘grant applier’ and fundraiser, reinforcing the retreat of the traditional state. |
Keywords | public schools; funding; competitive grants; autonomous; decentralised; work intensification; workload |
Year | 2024 |
Journal | The Australian Educational Researcher |
Journal citation | 52, pp. 899-917 |
Publisher | Springer Dordrecht |
ISSN | 0311-6999 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00746-9 |
Scopus EID | 2-s2.0-85198087143 |
Web address (URL) | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-024-00746-9 |
Open access | Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access |
Research or scholarly | Research |
Page range | 899-917 |
Funder | Australian Research Council (ARC) |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 10 Jul 2024 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 20 Jun 2024 |
Deposited | 15 Jan 2025 |
ARC Funded Research | This output has been funded, wholly or partially, under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 |
Grant ID | DE210100513 |
Additional information | © The Author(s), 2024. |
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/91241/competitive-grants-in-autonomous-public-schools-how-school-principals-are-labouring-for-public-school-funding
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Publisher's version
OA_Rowe_2024_Competitive_grants_in_autonomous_public_schools.pdf | |
License: CC BY 4.0 | |
File access level: Open |
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