Was trip fair?

Should a school use any of its funds to send teachers on a study trip overseas? That is the question the Auditor-General must answer about Blockhouse Bay Intermediate’s spending $20,000 in airfares for 12 staff to spend two weeks in the Cook Islands during the 2017 July school holidays.

Our investigation published today suggests it was a working trip. The group prepared with professional development courses and in the Cooks spent most mornings in classrooms or churches observing local teachers and classes. Afternoons were for “debriefing/reflection”. They were required to keep a record and report to other staff when they returned.

But was this a proper use of school funds? When a school organises an overseas study trip for its pupils, the cost is met by parents or fundraising for the purpose.

Principal Michael Malins says the teachers paid for accommodation and the school paid for flights from revenue from fee-paying students.

But the Audit Office regards any funds not raised for a specific purpose to be public money.

State schools that use their taxfunded staff and facilities to raise extra money from foreign students cannot spend it as they like. It would seem reasonable to require it be used to improve the education they provide to all students including, and perhaps especially, those paying the fees.

It seems unlikely the fee-paying students included those in the school with Cook Islands heritage, or those from all Pacific Islands, just 6 per cent according to its latest Education Review Office report.

Ministry of Education guidelines say overseas travel must be weighed against other priorities such as delivering the curriculum.

It seems the ministry knew of the school’s teachers’ jaunt with time to stop it. It will be for the Auditor-General to make a clear ruling.

Even if he finds there was educational value for the school’s small Pacific Island component, 12 teachers seems excessive.

A school answerable to fee-paying parents might not have dared do this. A state school should be held to the same account.