THE drama that has enveloped the elite Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne over the past month has done more than put this private institution under an uncomfortable glare of public examination; it has also shown how much the world of children’s education meshes with that of business.
The MLC story is one of big salaries, audit trails and high-level meetings and, tellingly, the people involved are among Australia’s corporate high fliers.
The MLC board is chaired by Melbourne University Publishing CEO and publisher-in-chief Louise Adler, and its other directors include: former Crazy John’s CEO Brendan Fleiter; National Australia Bank, JB Were and Qantas Airways non-executive director Patricia Cross; Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour; PwC managing partner Melbourne Tony Peake; La Trobe University deputy vice-chancellor Belinda Probert; and prominent demographer and KPMG partner Bernard Salt.
While that line-up is impressive from a corporate perspective, there are several schools in Western Australia that have similar levels of high-profile business expertise.
From research undertaken for the WA Business News Book of Lists on private schools, two institutions stand out as having a heavy leaning to high-profile corporate players on their boards, or advisory councils as they are sometimes known.
Apart from running Australia’s largest private employer, Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder heads a solid school council at Scotch College, which includes resources company directors Jeremy Shervington and Vanessa Guthrie, investment adviser Murray McGill, and leading academic administrator Margaret Seares.
Perth’s own version of MLC also has a strong corporate side. It is chaired by Penny Flett, CEO of care group Brightwater, who has also been a recent president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, one of the strongest regional industry associations in the country. Also on her board are local PwC chief Nick Brasington, another leading UWA administrator, Gaye McMath, and Poseidon Nickel CEO David Singleton, who was formerly chief of major engineering firm Clough.
The table shows the most prominent business people found on many school boards, although there are many other leading professionals who went unnamed. Numerous leaders in fields such as the judiciary, politics, and education were also omitted, while some school boards were not easily available for public scrutiny.
This list does not take into account the boards of the various fundraising foundations associated with most of these schools, which often have similarly high-profile business people represented.
And, of course, a corporate-leaning board does not necessarily make the key decisions of a board or council easier or even right. Some observers have suggested the messy situation at MLC in Melbourne may, in part, be due to the corporate nature of many of the decision makers involved.
Generally, independent school board members who spoke to WA Business News said the board’s job was similar to that of a company’s in hiring and firing the principal, and ensuring they kept the institution focused on its strategy.
In addition, fund raising was seen as an important element.
However, there appears to be different approach with the Catholic system’s governance.
Catholic school boards, in the main, don’t appoint principals. The exception is John XXIII College, which is an incorporated body.
The rest of the 158-school Catholic system has two types of institution. Most are managed at diocese level linked to the local parish, while the rest are schools that have been established by a religious order.
In the case of the diocese schools, whose boards are elected annually by the parent body, the principal is appointed by the church upon advice from a panel created for that purpose and associated with the school.
In the case of schools established by religious orders, it is the orders that appoint both the board and the principal.
The school boards in those cases are given responsibility for finances and planning.
