Appendix 3: Estimated spending on professional development in 2007/08
The following table is our estimate of the Ministry of Education’s spending in 2007/08 on professional development for primary and secondary school teachers within the scope of our audit. It is based on information provided by the Ministry and in the Estimates of Appropriations.
| Type of expense | Appropriations | Description | 2007/08 budget ($ million) (GST exclusive) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Departmental Output Expense | Support and Resources for Teachers | Expenditure on policies and services focused on supporting the work and enhancing the capability of teachers. It includes providing professional development for teachers. | 21.600 | This appropriation includes policy advice, and the new curriculum. This is our minimum estimate of expenditure on professional development for teachers within this appropriation. Our estimate uses information in the Ministry’s 2007- 2012 Statement of Intent on output 5.3. |
| Non-Departmental Output Expense | Professional Development and Support | Delivery of professional development and advisory support to staff in schools to support effective teaching and enhance self-management. | 91.970 | A list of the 43 initiatives associated with this Professional Development and Support appropriation is provided in Appendix 2. We have excluded spending on programmes beyond the scope of our audit. |
| Other Crown Expenses | Primary and Secondary Education | Estimated expenditure of school operational funding on professional development services for teachers. | 31.169 | Assumes the same proportion of total operational funding being spent on teacher professional development services as in 2005/06. The 2005/06 figure is indicative only, as the Ministry has noted that there is uncertainty about the accuracy of the data due to schools’ reporting inconsistencies. |
| Other Crown Expenses | Primary and Secondary Education | EHSAS initiative | 10.000 | See description in Appendix 1. |
| Other Crown Expenses | Primary and Secondary Education | Ministry estimate of expenditure on teacher release time and call-back days as part of collective employment agreements. | 80.000 | This figure was provided by the Ministry and applies to the 2005/06 year. The Ministry was unable to provide a more recent equivalent figure. The figure includes the cost of relief teaching to cover study and sabbatical leave. The Ministry has not been able to tell us exactly what proportion relates to relief teaching costs. We therefore acknowledge that the Ministry’s actual spending on professional development for teachers as a result of arrangements in the collective agreements with teachers will be less than $80 million a year. This is assuming that the current costs of these arrangements are the same as in 2005/06. |
| Other Crown Expenses | Schooling Improvement | These are projects that aim to improve the capability of schools and clusters and their responsiveness to the needs of their communities. Most projects are developed in the context of a business case. Teacher professional development is an aspect of the projects. | 4.372 | Not all of this sum will be explicitly for professional development, but professional development is a significant component of Schooling Improvement projects. |
| Benefits and Other Unrequited Expenses | National Study Awards | These are the study awards, sabbaticals, and fellowships for teachers. | 0.361 | This figure excludes the salary costs associated with relief teacher cover for teachers receiving awards. |
| Benefits and Other Unrequited Expenses | Study Abroad Awards | Awards granted to provide assistance to top scholars, researchers, and teachers to undertake placements abroad and to participate in reciprocal education exchange arrangements. | [2.290] | The teacher proportion of this is unknown, so we have not included the figure in the total. |
| Estimated total expenditure | 239.472 |
Notes:
1. The funding the Ministry receives for some of the appropriations listed above is higher than the funding levels shown. This is because funding for professional development for early childhood education and special education are excluded from the information provided above.
2. We have included information within our estimate of spending that the Ministry does not normally include because of accuracy and currency issues. We acknowledge that these are issues with some of the information, in particular with schools’ operational funding. In our view, it is important to identify, to the extent possible, the resources being allocated to professional development.
3. The Ministry considers study awards, sabbaticals, and fellowships for teachers to be of a different nature from the other professional development initiatives listed above. Therefore, it excludes these in its analyses of spending on professional development for teachers. We have included them because it is a public resource that is allocated to the ongoing professional development of teachers.
page top