St Bede’s College heads Ivy League table
CHRISTCHURCH’S ST Bede’s College has beaten traditional mainstays Auckland Grammar and Christ’s College to head an unofficial New Zealand Ivy League.
In a Sunday Star-Times survey of the schools attended by leading politicians, business leaders, government mandarins and the judiciary*, St Bede’s topped the list, helped by new parliamentary Speaker David Carter, one of five St Bede’s old boys in Parliament.
Auckland Grammar was second and Christ’s College, once a prolific producer of parliamentarians, judges and business leaders, was tied for third with Matamata College, Napier’s William Colenso College and Palmerston North’s Queen Elizabeth College.
While other countries have private schools that routinely produce the next generation of business, state and political leaders, New Zealand is marked by the wide diversity of schools that contribute to our ruling elite.
The 70 leaders asked by the Sunday Star- Times to provide information on their schooling came from 59 separate schools. Of those, 49 were New Zealand schools, the majority of them state schools from every corner of the country.
In the present National Government – despite the St Bede’s influence – nearly three- quarters were state- educated, including Prime Minister John Key.
Only eight of the 35 ministers and political party leaders polled went to state-integrated schools, many of which would have been private when they were students there. Only one politician went to a private school: newly minted minister Nikki Kaye who attended St Kentigern Girls’ School – Corran, in Auckland.
St Bede’s College rector Justin Boyle said it was his college’s goal to produce leaders for society, so topping the StarTimes’ poll came as a pleasant surprise.
Boyle said St Bede’s was part of a strong Marist network that involved students in leadership courses.
‘‘We think [it] gives our boys a structure and a philosophy around how we should lead and that’s something that has now become institutionalised in our place,’’ he said.
In the poll, the private-public contrast was greatest among top civil servants and the judiciary.
Four out of our five Supreme Court judges were privately educated and among the chief executives of New Zealand’s 10 biggest government departments, the five New Zealanders were all educated privately (the other five were educated overseas).
That is in stark contrast to the leaders of our top businesses where almost three-quarters of the chief executives and board chairs of top-10 companies on the New Zealand stock exchange went to public schools.
Most New Zealanders receive a public education: of the 760,000 current students, 84 per cent are in state schools.
The divide between the largely private-educated state mandarins and the rest of us comes as no surprise to education expert Peter O’Connor, associate professor at Auckland University, who says the old boys’ (and girls’) network is very much alive. ‘‘It doesn’t surprise me that you have people succeeding in the civil service who come from very similar backgrounds,’’ he said.
‘‘Although public education has been heavily criticised over the past couple of years we do have a system which allows people to, through a system of meritocracy, rise to the top, which is really encouraging,’’ he said.
‘‘The figures with the civil service suggest another truth which we’ve always known, and that is it’s not what you learn, it’s who you learn with.
‘‘ Private schools offer an education alongside other wealthy, well-positioned people which build the kinds of networks necessary to succeed in a small country.’’
NEW ZEALAND’S greatest footballer wants to set up one of the country’s new charter schools.
Oceania Footballer of the Century and devout, born- again Christian Wynton Rufer predicts he will be ‘‘adding a bit to the controversy’’ of the schools being hotly debated in the education sector.
Details of ‘‘partnership’’ schools will not be formalised until the Education Amendment Bill 2012 is passed, but a working group has collected expressions of interest from potential founders of the non-state schools.
Wellington-born and raised Rufer is in talks with a Christian middle school trust to create a school of ‘‘excellence’’, specialising in football.
The intended location of Rufer’s school is South Auckland, but the Villa Education Trust – which designed Auckland’s Mt Hobson Middle School and Upper Valley Middle School – also intends to open charter schools in West Auckland and Whanganui.
The trust is open to ideas for what the other two schools could specialise in.
Rufer said he had been looking for ways of extending the opportunities offered at his WYNRS football academy in Auckland, to more children than the present 3000.
He jumped at the chance to combine talents with Mt Hobson Middle School and Villa Education Trust founder Alwyn Poole, and his wife, Karen.
They ran an ‘‘ outstanding’’ school already, which gave his own youngest son an education that no state school could offer, he said.
‘‘And from my side of it with sport and football, we’re the leading football academy in New Zealand.
‘‘If tied in with school, kids can train during the day as part of the school programmes like in Germany, Switzerland and America.’’ It would be a big advantage, since ‘‘ sometimes they’re quite tired after school’’.
Preliminary indications had been fairly positive, but ‘‘like with anything, there is a lot of politics’’.
‘‘To set up anything, it’s so political it’s pathetic.
‘‘I’m controversial as it is myself and have enough dramas running my own programme.’’
While he understood the fears of allowing unregistered teachers to teach, their model would only ‘‘deliver excellence’’.
‘‘I’m not going to hold my breath on it, but I know we’ll do a brilliant job.’’
Poole said he wanted to work with Rufer to offer ‘‘ the opportunity for some superb sports provisions’’ and good academic support to those struggling in the present system.
‘‘Something else to give these kids something to live for. I think the football would be an interesting start.’’ After working in classes of no more than 15, pupils in year 7 and 8 could spend a couple of hours three afternoons a week in football training, increasing in frequency for those showing potential by year 9 and 10, he said.
The restriction on charging fees would open the roll to children from lower socio-economic families, where there was a potential to find some real football stars, he said.
While there was a ‘‘lot of nonsense’’ being spoken about charter schools, schools such as that of tennis pro Andre Agassi, in America, had proved successful, Rufer said.
‘‘A lot of the controversy to me is about patch protection from unions.’’ He believed in strong accountability, despite charter schools not having to answer to probing under the Official Information Act.
‘‘I would be very, very uncomfortable with being secretive because it is taxpayers’ money. And we want people to see what we’re achieving, and if we’re not achieving then we shouldn’t be in business.’’
A select committee will report back to Parliament on the legal requirements of the school model by April 18.