In seven chapters, Ross Harrold provides an insightful and comprehensive account of the financial reforms currently taking place in Australia. From the outset, the author manages to draw attention to the persistent tensions and debates between “outside” reformers and educators that typify financial management reform. The encroachment of economic rationalism that dominates the “outside” reformers′ perspective and the Government′s agenda is strongly resisted by educators, many of whom continue to uphold a traditional humanistic perspective. To explain the emergence of the reformers′ paradigm, Harrold provides a description of the current status of funding different types of schools and educational institutions. At the same time, however, he alerts readers of a major shift in resource allocation from a cost‐driven to a revenue‐based basis. Such a shift does not happen accidentally. In supporting his point, Harrold presents a historical account of public sector management reform and lays a framework for explaining how the federal government allows corporate philosophies and market forces to bring about financial disciplines to its various departments. He also exposes some of the difficulties which arise when public sector reform is transplanted into educational contexts.
Drawing on experiences in North America, Harrold outlines some of the major thrusts that have brought Australian school systems in line with outcome based education and quality assurance standards. This is facilitated when an environment of accountability and of system devolution is created. Principals are encouraged to utilize newly formulated techniques to assemble and diagnose resource information to further upgrade the performance of their schools. In the final chapter, Harrold attempts to forecast the prospects for educational resource reforms. In so doing, he revisits the general controversial view that, with more flexible policies and cost‐consciousness, “reform will achieve significant educational improvement”.
Harrold manages to pack a considerable amount of information into the book and treats each issue both thoughtfully and in a very thorough manner indeed. He also manages to diagnose each situation objectively, carefully presenting arguments for and against the economic rationalist reform in education resource management. I agree with the words used by Phillip McKenzie in the Foreword where he applauds Harrold for attempting the “difficult task of providing a language, and an analytical framework that both educators and education policymakers can relate to and use”. To a large measure, he indeed succeeds in accomplishing this difficult task.
As a reader from outside Australia, however, there are a number of areas where I believe the book could have been strengthened. The resource management reform in Australia is in many ways similar to trends in other developed countries. I would like to have seen a chapter or section devoted to the contextual analyses of the political, economic, social or even cultural changes that triggered the resource management reforms in Australia. Such information would more readily allow comparison with similar reform in other countries. A contextual analysis would also establish a clearer parameter for readers to reflect upon the relative effects of environmental forces that shape Australian resource management reform. The author has not ignored the contribution contextual changes have on the reforms and at different points touches upon issues such as political pressure and will, national financial burden, available taxation basis and social demographic shifts that call for realignment of resource allocation. Whereas this information is included it may have been more useful if it had been presented in a more coherent fashion.
The second area that may have been useful to readers outside Australia would have been a more systematic introduction to changes in fiscal arrangements State by State rather than highlighting schools in some regions only. A broader coverage of the fiscal reform in the various States would allow a more holistic assessment of the national reform movement and a greater understanding of inter‐state similarities and differences. All these would further enhance readers′ appreciation of the magnitude of changes that Australia′s school systems are undergoing today.
In sum, the book should be interesting to both educators and policy makers. Harrold deserves full credit for comprehensively explaining and analyzing the current fiscal reforms that have transformed the financial management of education in Australia. People who are concerned with the financial reforms that are taking place in the industrialized world will find this a very useful and important reference.
