There's nothing like a good night's sleep

Teachers around the country might well have celebrated Education Minister Hekia Parata's abandoning of the Budget proposal that would have increased some class sizes, but the technology teachers at Kaitaia Intermediate School were pleased just to have a good night's sleep.

So principal Sue Arrell said on Friday morning, after the "huge dark cloud" that had been hanging over the school had lifted.

The proposal would have cost her four to six of the school's 12 teacher positions, she said, probably spelling the end of the technology classes attended not only by KIS pupils but also children from other schools.

The other option would have been to increase class sizes significantly.

Ms Arrell said she wished to express huge gratitude to the whole Far North community, which had got behind its children, and its schools. Without such support the decision to abandon the proposal would not have been made so soon, if at all, she said.

All teachers worked very hard to give their pupils the best education possible within the limited resources available, she added, but the government's desire to lift teaching quality was welcome. She suspected there had been some slipping in teacher training quality since her training days, but she was also concerned at the possible lack of real experience of the education system in the Minister's office.

Even if provision had been made to spare intermediates from the worst impact of the proposal her school would still have lost one or two positions.

Kaeo Primary School principal Paul Barker, who had feared losing one of five teachers and ending up with classes of up to 40 pupils, was also relieved for his teachers and delighted for the children.

His mostly Maori, Decile 1 school was doing everything the government wanted to raise Maori achievement - just weeks ago it had been recognised with a glowing ERO report - and years of hard work would have been put at risk by staff cuts and "massively large" classes.

"I was really worried about what was going to happen at the end of the year," Mr Barker said.

"I'll give (the government) credit for finally listening, but not for failing to talk to people in the frontline about these decisions in the first place."

He believed the changes had been poorly thought through, and appeared to have been proposed purely from a cost-saving point of view rather than how schools worked or the interests of children.

The Quality Public Education Coalition is calling on the government to make the savings it is looking for by reducing taxpayer subsidies for private schools.

Those subsidies had risen from $40 million a year when National took office to more than $70 million, a spokesman said last week. The 44 schools that were members of the Independent Schools' Association, which did not cater for children with special needs, significant behavioural problems or serious learning difficulties, had average class sizes of 12 and a maximum of 16.

The average public school class was 25, with many well over 30.