Are school vouchers the most 'Christian' approach to funding? At a Colloquium on Religion in the Public Square convened by the Presbyterian Church of Victoria today it was suggested that school vouchers may be the funding model that is most consistent with Christian values and Biblical principles.

The benefit of a voucher based funding system is that it places parents in the position of determining which school receives the benefit of that voucher and reinforces their ability to choose an education for their children.  By putting the decision making power for funding in the hands of parents a voucher based system supports the Biblically based parental responsonsibility of the education of their children.  This is also consistent with international human rights instruments that acknowledge the prior rights of parents in this area.

The Funding Principles for Christian Schools adopted earlier this year recognised the important role of parents:

The role of parents as the primary educators must be affirmed and maintained.

• Both Biblically and under international human rights instruments the role of parents as primary educators is acknowledged and supported in the funding framework.
• As those with primary responsibility parents have a 'prior right' to choose the education given to their children.
• Governments have a responsibility to support parents in exercising their choice of education and contributing to it.

In a voucher based funding system instead of government deciding which schools get money and how much, government would distribute the entire education budget in the form of vouchers for parents of each child of school age. Parents would be free to spend their vouchers at any school of their choice, government or non-government, religious or non-religious.

Vouchers could be established with the value of the full cost of education at a government school, or a percentage of that cost or on a sliding, possibly means tested, scale.  Individual additional student needs such a disability, indigeneity, remoteness, non-English speaking background etc could be address through supplements in vouchers for individual students.

Concerns that have been raised in relation to both the SES modela and also the recently released ISCEA index about their use data from Census Collection Districts of around 220 households rather than the need and circumstances of individual school parents.  A voucher based system would bypass these problems and allow much more focussed targeting of funding to the needs of individual students.

A voucher based system could also potentially remove the criticisms levelled at Federal government for supporting non-government schools.  Under a voucher model all parents would receive a needs based voucher.  It would then be up to parents to determine the best option for their children, be that government or non-government.

Given the potential benefits of a voucher system maybe this is a funding model that Christian schools should consider.  Over to you....