Integrated schools can help meet city’s spread

There used to be tension between Auckland’s regional planners and the Ministry of Education, which has to build new schools ahead of population growth. The ministry’s predictions of where Auckland would grow did not always accord with where the region’s planners wanted it to grow. The ministry built Long Bay College on a “greenfields” site in the 1970s, clearly expecting coastal development to continue to the Okura estuary and beyond, while the planners were designing a new suburb in the Albany basin.

The planners prevailed, though Long Bay College is surrounded by new development today and the Environment Court has only recently blocked residential subdivision of land overlooking the Okura inlet. But the ministry’s latest plans, for as many as 12 new schools in the region by 2030, look to be broadly in line with Auckland Council’s designs for the city’s spread.

The plan for a dozen new schools in as many years, which we reveal today, is a sign of how fast Auckland is growing and should continue to grow. Experience contains a caution, though. Just when Long Bay College was opening and the Albany basin was zoned for development, the economy entered troubled water, population growth stalled and very little development happened on the city periphery for the next 20 years.

But there is no reason to think history will be repeated, and the ministry must continue to build new schools in any case. If it waits for the population to arrive it will be too late. Next year it is opening two new primary schools, at Kumeu and Flat Bush, and by 2021 it will have another five, at Orewa, Hobsonville, Papakura, Drury and Pukekohe.

By 2030 it will need secondary schools for those pupils and it is planning four or five new ones, at Orewa, Albany, Westgate, Drury and Pukekohe. This is despite spare capacity in recently built schools. Hobsonville Point Secondary opened in 2014 with space for 1350 students but has only 545. Albany Senior High School is still about 200 students short of its capacity for 1000.

Yet even with the planned additional schools, the ministry expects nearly all secondary schools will be full by 2030. It looks forward to all needing enrolment zones and having much less room for schools to accept students from out of their zone. While this would suit the current Government’s stated wish to reduce competition between schools, it probably means demand will increase for private and integrated (state subsidised) independent schools.

The ministry appears to be in less hurry to approve the plans of integrated schools. The Catholic Church is awaiting approval for new secondary schools for Drury and Millwater, and both the Elim Church and NZ Christian Properties Trust await approval for primary schools in Pukekohe. The ministry serves a Government that is not fond of independent schools, as witnessed by its determination to close charter schools or reconstitute them in a form that will not let them proliferate.

The Government should not be reluctant to let independent providers help meet the expected demand and the ministry should ensure its own building plans do not needlessly duplicate independent plans that appear to be further advanced. The way Auckland is growing, attracting migration and building highways around the periphery, it will need more schools without delay. It is the future taking shape.

The plan for a dozen new schools in as many years is a sign of how fast Auckland is growing and should continue to grow.