I want to address the challenging issue of school cost this week. You have received a letter from the College recently about the fees for next year. The unpleasant news no-one really wants to hear that fees are rising. We gave you that news in the letter.

In Australia, we are privileged to have a system in which Independent schools like ours, get government funding. The amount we get from Federal and State Governments is insufficient to run the school, so we also have to charge a per student fee. These two are our only real source of income so as costs rise, we need either Government support to rise or fee levels to rise.

Schools like ours are set up as not-for-profit companies which means that no-one outside of the school receives (or may receive) any benefit should the school generate a surplus of income over expenditure. Board members are volunteers, the sponsoring Church gets no dividend or any income from the school’s operation.  This does not mean we do not generate a surplus. We need to do that to fund future capital developments such as carparking, major building renovations, the construction of new buildings, the purchase of more land etc.

In the Independent school sector, there are benchmarks we can measure ourselves against to ensure we are operating in a financially sensible way. These include pupil/teacher ratios, debt servicing capacity, total salaries as a percentage of income, and so on. We need to stay within the industry guidelines to ensure we can operate effectively and for most of the benchmarks we are within the industry standard.

For some years now GPCC has suffered a gradual drop in enrolments and this has a significant impact on the pupil/teacher ratio and the size of salaries as a percentage of income. Of course, when student numbers drop, we look to decrease staffing but sometimes the drop is spread thinly across many year levels such that it is very difficult to remove a teacher. Class numbers may be lower than optimal but not low enough to combine classes. We have wrestled with this issue and its impact on the budget and therefore our capacity to produce a surplus to allow us to progress capital investment.

I am pleased to report that enrolments are now growing again and the ratios are improving but some are not yet where they should be. GPCC is approaching its 40 year anniversary and many of our buildings are getting older and in need of major refurbishment and even replacement. Some of our facilities are now inadequate and have been for some time so we need to ensure we can fund these projects.

The surplus we require is not huge. In fact, if we get to a 5% surplus of income over expenditure we would be happy. We are aiming for something close to that for 2021 and have trimmed all possible expenditure to help achieve that. GPCC is not short of cash to fund daily operations so we are not concerned about the school finances but are trying to be good stewards.

There is never a good time to raise fees and given the situation with COVID, the Board has been careful to ensure that the rise is minimal. Government funding is actually reducing for us over the next few years because it is now tied directly to an estimate of the parents’ capacity to pay. According to the Government, in general, our parent body is able to afford higher fees so they will reduce their contribution accordingly!

Finally, we continue to explore alternative sources of school income, so that we do not have to continue to raise fees to cover ever increasing costs. This is not easy for a school, but something we are committed to exploring.

Thank you for your on-going commitment to us as a school. Be assured we seek to be wise in our spending so that we can provide a quality education that is as affordable as possible.

Phillip Nash

Principal