Education Minister Chris Hipkins has announced decisions on how schools are run: how will they affect children? Photo / George Novak, Bay of Plenty Times
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has announced decisions on how schools are run: how will they affect children? Photo / George Novak, Bay of Plenty Times
Q. What changes in the school system will affect my child?
A. It depends.
If your child attends a school in a poorer area, the reforms will give your school more regional support for teachers and for school buildings.
If you plan to send your child out of zone toa school in a richer area, you may no longer be able to do that because a ministry takeover of zoning is likely to make most students attend their local schools (although current students will be "grandparented" so they won't have to move).
If your child is an in-zone student in a richer area, you probably won't notice any changes.
And if you're unhappy with how your child's school handles issues such as bullying and suspensions, you will now have a right to appeal to an independent panel. However the panel will only have powers to mediate and won't be able to overturn a school decision unless the school agrees.
A. The Government says the hands-off system of self-governing schools that we've had for 30 years "has failed to address persistent disparities in educational outcomes". Students who go to schools in richer areas do better on average than those in poorer areas.
Q. Will these changes achieve more equal outcomes for students in different schools?
A. Waikato University education professor Martin Thrupp says both the zoning changes and beefed-up support for schools should lead to more equal outcomes.
Professor Martin Thrupp: "An important step forward." Photo / File
"It's an important step forward, particularly around taking more control over zones and enrolment schemes because that's at the root of a lot of the inequality," he says.
"It won't address the wider inequalities within our society and the way that they impact on education, but the changes will reduce the extent to which school segregation adds to residential segregation."
