School experts urge radical change

Years of poor planning has resulted in a ‘predatory’ education environment: head

Radical changes are needed to New Zealand’s schooling model to stop the success of rich schools at the expense of the poor, education experts say. Data shows decile 10 schools, those with the lowest proportion of disadvantaged students, are now an average 2.5 times the size of an average decile 1, with the biggest chunk of students from low-income families.

In Auckland, some of the so-called “top” schools have doubled in size in the past 15 years, while a cluster of low-decile schools have seen their rolls halved in the same time, as parents “choose up”.

The impact of the exodus was made clear in the Herald documentary Under The Bridge, set inside decile 1 Papakura High School, where falling rolls saw staff cuts, disused classrooms and a sense of pessimism about the school’s future.

“When I first started I would walk through the gates every day and it was basically packed,” said former Year 13 student Robert Downes, 18.

“At lunchtimes . . . it was packed and now . . . nothing. Basically ghosts.

“You could yell and you’d hear yourself echoing.”

Principal John Rohs, who began his role in 2016, said many students in the school’s catchment either left to attend Rosehill College, the higherdecile school across town, or bussed elsewhere each day.

“It’s something I find really disappointing,” he said. “That the Papakura community doesn’t have the confidence that Papakura is a good place to be educated.”

But Rohs said it wasn’t just the community to blame — the longer he spent at the school the more he realised it was poor planning at a government level as well.

“It doesn’t seem to me that anybody really at ministry level thought through clearly over the past 20 years what the picture of education in Papakura should look like,” Rohs said.

“It just seems like a jumble of ad hoc decisions were made that allowed one school to become enormous and one to become small,” he said. “It’s been a really predatory environment.”

He said while relationships with schools were warming, it wasn’t enough to overcome the years of muddled thinking and competition, or the schooling model.

Educationalist Bernadine Vester, the author of the new book South Auckland, Southern Transformation, said if there was to be a better chance for students at low-decile schools, the competitive element needed to be better managed. “We need to move to Tomorrow’s Schools 2.0,” Vester said. Proposed changes to funding — which will see decile ratings scrapped — and the introduction of “Communities of Learning” — where schools are enabled to work together — were not enough, she said. Vester believes there should be a regional body for each district that sits between the Ministry of Education and individual school boards, to ensure decisions made by schools are best for everyone in the community. The suggestion is similar to one made by chief researcher Cathy Wylie from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research in her book Vital Connections five years ago. “You need someone who would be able to sit down with principals and

HWatch Under the Bridge at nzherald.co.nz look at demographics and what money is available, and find the fairest way to provide schools of good quality for every student,” Vester said.

That might mean some restrictions on parent choice, although that would be unpopular.

Education Minister Hekia Parata said she believed every child should have access to a great education to support them to fulfil their potential and achieve more in life.

However, she thought the changes already proposed by the Government would provide the necessary update to Tomorrow’s Schools to allow for more collaboration and a more targeted equity funding system.

In particular, she said the Communities of Learning would shift the focus to student pathways rather than individual institutions.

More than half of all schools and all kids were now part of a Community, which were required to set achievement challenges as a group and would receive funding to meet those challenges accordingly.

A funding review is ongoing.