Why has governance become such a buzzword lately in the non-government school sector?

And what should your school be doing about it?

Some context

With the exception of South Australian non-government schools, in all Australian States and Territories non-government schools are required to comply with a detailed set of registration standards. As a general rule, non-government schools are subject to re-registration every 5 years, at which time they must undergo detailed inspections either via peer review, or by inspectors appointed by government agencies.

One of the major challenges for schools is that their obligation to comply with registration standards (not to mention other key laws) is continuous. Unfortunately, as most school executives will attest, compliance in schools is usually anything but continuous. Most schools work frantically to prepare for re-registration once every 5 years and then relax their focus, before repeating the process again as their next re-registration looms. This practice is both high risk and extremely expensive as schools often talk of forming project teams and engaging consultants to assist them through the re-registration process.

To add another spanner in the works for schools, in many jurisdictions the pace of change in registration standards seems to be accelerating. The WA standards have been amended four times in the past four years. In NSW over the same period, they have been amended seven times. During the same period major legislative changes have been passed, affecting nearly all non-government schools. This includes the staged introduction of the harmonised work health safety laws as well as the introduction of the new Australian Privacy Principles in March 2014.

Add to all this the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse (which is driving legislative change across the country), the rapid emergence of social media (which is changing the way people socialise and communicate) and the general increase in community expectations with respect to professional standards. Simply put, non-government schools (and in particular school principals, governors and executives) are entering a new age where they will either embrace strong governance practices, or find their poor management practices being exposed and their personal reputation, and well as the reputation of their schools, damaged.

NSW - a case study

As previously reported, on 3 October 2014 the Board of Studies, Teaching & Educational Standards NSW (BOSTES) released the revised NSW Registered and Accredited Individual Non-government Schools Manual and NSW Registered and Accredited System Non-government Schools Manual (NSW Registration Standards or Standards). We explained in our Briefing Paper and related article, that the revised Standards include new obligations of non-government schools and the 'responsible persons' in these schools to comply with new governance standards.

Amongst the key changes are the requirements of NSW schools to introduce (or refine their practices with respect to):

• Governance charters;
• Risk Management;
• Compliance;
• Conflicts of Interest;
• Related Party Transactions; and
• Professional Learning for governors, principals and other senior managers.

Over the coming weeks we will dig deeper into each of these areas and provide commentary with respect to what practical steps schools should be taking to ensure compliance. Whilst these articles will focus on the NSW changes they will have general application for all schools as the topics being considered are good governance practices generally. If they haven't already been introduced into the registration standards of other jurisdictions, the likelihood is that they will be in the not-too-near future.

Finally, CompliSpace will be hosting a live Webinar 'Raising the bar: meeting new standards in school governance' on 27 February 2015 at 3pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time presented by David Griffiths, Managing Director CompliSpace, to explain further the new governance standards and to answer your questions on how to help you implement robust governance related structures, policies and procedures in your school. For more information and to reserve your webinar seat here click here.