Member Focus

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA recently honoured several 50 year anniversary members and among them was one of the state’s most respected and long running schools.

St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls was founded in 1896 and has since developed a proud reputation for providing opportunities for young women entering a whole range of careers.

Principal Joy Shepherd has been at the helm for the past 11 years, giving her an opportunity to see many changes in the hotly debated education sector, among them frequent curriculum overhauls and the growth of education as a business.

"During my time the curriculum change has been considerable," she said.

"There is now consideration of a national curriculum and after so much change in WA recently secondary teachers in particular will be a little weary, which makes it difficult to get them to engage."

Ms Shepherd explained that while curriculum change was a necessary and important fact of life in the school system, there needed to be flexibility for teachers.

"I understand what is behind wanting change but I worry that it gets too prescriptive at times," she said.

"There should be a minimum core content that is then left to schools to present."

Employing dozens of people and being responsible for millions of dollars in funding leaves no doubt that schools are big business. 

Ms Shepherd said schools had to come around to the idea that they were true businesses, albeit in the business of education.

"In the last 15 or 20 years the whole accountability for the business side of a school organisation has grown enormously," she said.

"Schools which traditionally have been slow to see themselves as business now have huge responsibilities which is where we rely heavily on and are grateful for organisations like CCI."

Like many businesses, recent and planned industrial relations changes have made things more complicated for St Hilda's.

"Where we just used to look at the award and pay our teachers above it, once we got into bargaining and negotiating that made it more complex," Ms Shepherd said.

"There were changes with WorkChoices and now there are changes again - and they are enormous.

"The whole idea of employer-employee sit down negotiations needs to be done at a broader level again. In a school like St Hilda’s teachers don't have a lot more to give in terms of productivity and are pretty much 24/7 in their roles."

The global financial crisis is affecting all business and Ms Shepherd said the school had predicted some changes as a result.

"I'm sure the crisis will affect the school eventually, though we haven't seen it yet," she said.

"When we were doing our budgeting we took it into account and organised our budgeting differently to release funds for a worst case scenario of students."

St Hilda's is yet to experience a drop in numbers and believe that while people will still work hard to get their children into the prestigious school, it may come later in their education.

"What's most likely to happen is that local people may delay sending their children to the school. Once students are in the senior school people work very hard to keep them there," Ms Shepherd said.

Another potential drop will come as people who were in Australia as temporary residents to work on many of the projects associated with the boom begin to leave, or at least do not continue to arrive with the same frequency as before.

The assimilation of education with technology has been one of the biggest shifts in the sector and one which St Hilda’s has been at the forefront of.

"It's a change which needs a lot of thought on how to integrate," Ms Shepherd said.

With the government rolling out technology for schools in increasing amounts, including the 'computer for every student' promise from the Federal Government, Ms Shepherd said it was important to remember that technology should be in schools to enhance the learning process.

"It's important to keep up with technology and to balance it out with human contact," she said.

By Luke Nieuwhof

CCI Journalist

Global economic uncertainty is hitting many people and organisations hard. Among the worst affected are charities, who will endure a double hit of less donations and more demand.

While business is in a belt-tightening phase, clever operators may actually move towards increasing charitable donations in tough times as an investment for the future.

The St Vincent de Paul Society is one of the most well recognised charity brands, and with over 900,000 members across 180 countries it is equivalent to some of the world's largest conglomerates.

Western Australia fundraising manager Lucinda Ardagh said the organisation was uncertain of just what the impact of the economic crisis will be, although she acknowledged they had enjoyed some good years during the boom.

"The St Vincent de Paul Society is bracing for a rough twelve months ahead with global economic conditions set to worsen and job losses escalating," she said.

"We will find that people, who ordinarily would have never sought out assistance, will need help to pay bills, buy food and clothe themselves and their children. The people worst affected (in a downturn) will be the people at the very bottom."

Major church providers called for a crisis and recovery fund from the Australian Government last year to ensure people who were doing it tough due to the impact of the global financial woes were not further disadvantaged.

The collapse in the Australian dollar has also hit aid agencies like Oxfam particularly hard because in many countries where they work the economy is based around the US dollar.

There have been some stories of business becoming more charitable in current uncertain times, with excessive Christmas parties being replaced by modest get-togethers and saved funds donated to charity.

"There has been a massive push for people to tick the corporate social responsibility box," Ms Ardagh said.

Some business can approach giving to charity in the wrong way and Ms Ardagh advises that while enthusiasm is appreciated, starting out small and working your way up can be the best way to develop a beneficial relationship.

"A lot of agencies may, for example, offer to volunteer 500 staff at Thursday between 11am and 12pm and we just can't accommodate that sort of request," she said.

"While the intentions are great, it doesn’t help us. The most successful corporate volunteering projects develop over time. It might start with donations to a Christmas appeal, moving on to workplace giving with pre-tax donations, then supporting a specific cause.

“Corporate volunteering became very trendy and companies wanted to say they had done it, but sometimes it was to the detriment of the charities."

Ms Ardagh said corporate groups should understand that administrative or pro bono work can be just as valuable to a charity as being on the frontline, which is not always practical. One example is Ernst & Young and Notre Dame University, who have volunteers attend the St Vincent de Paul Society offices and provide assistance to children at a homework night.

"Some groups want to actually hand a hamper to an individual; they need to think about that from the perspective of the person receiving the hamper. The dignity of clients is of the utmost importance,” she said.

"It comes back to a hand up, not a hand out. Ongoing support over a period of time has so much more worth to us. We’ve had corporate groups come in and paint a house for example."

There are benefits available to a business willing to extend generosity including their own staff’s morale and recruitment incentives.

"Young people are now interviewing companies based on their social justice plans," Ms Ardagh said.

"I think it is a really important thing for companies and it has been acknowledged that Generation Y are about the holistic approach, they want to know their company is doing the right thing by the community with a good green policy and a good social justice policy."

The strong brand maintained by most charities can also be built upon by business.

"We've never been that savvy with brand type stuff until we realised just how valuable it was," Ms Ardagh said.

"The society is very well respected by political leaders, we have a number of senior members on Kevin Rudd's Social Inclusion Board for instance.

"We're not a flashy organisation, poverty's not sexy and it's a hard thing to sell, but at the same time people trust us with their donation dollar."

By Luke Nieuwhof

CCI Journalist