$2.6m for posh-school entry under fire as elitist

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Private-school scholarships for poorer students have been attacked as an "elitist" use of taxpayers' money.

But the Government says it is simply about giving choice to families who could not otherwise afford it.

From this year, the Government is providing $2.6 million worth of scholarships to allow students from low-income families to attend a private school.

The Aspire Scholarships will provide up to $15,000 towards the fees for every year a student attends the school.

Up to $1500 will also be provided for course-related costs.

The scholarships are part of a larger annual $10 million boost by the Government to "support wider access to private schools".

Lindsay Adams, a former principal of Glendowie College in Auckland, questioned why the taxpayer should be paying $2.6m for students to leave the state-funded education system.

"Has a proper evaluation of this apparent elitist policy been put in place, or is it a means of buying Act [Party] support?"

Associate Education Minister Heather Roy, the Act MP who pushed for the scholarships, said providing "more choice" in education was part of her party's agreement with National.

The money for the Aspire Scholarships had already been allocated for private schools. Aiming it at students in poorer families was the "exact opposite of elitist", Ms Roy said.

"It's purely about increasing educational opportunities and choice for those students who wouldn't normally have the ability to go to a private school.

"I certainly don't believe that necessarily the best school for a student is the one that is just down the road from them," the minister said.

The country's largest education union, the NZ Educational Institute, said the scholarships were just another "hare-brained scheme" that failed to address the deficiencies in schooling.

"This [scholarship] money will be taken out of that pool of money that the public sector system desperately needs," said national secretary Paul Goulter.

"The people inside the [public] schooling system ... are all working damned hard to try to offer effective choice to people who principally have come from lower-decile areas."

Ms Roy said it had to be remembered that private schools saved the country money.

Asked if she would like to see a greater proportion of New Zealand children in private schools, she said: "It's not the role of politicians to comment on where students should be going to school."

A HAND UP

Aspire Scholarships

* 150 scholarships will be handed out in the 2010 school year - 50 each in Years 9, 10 and 11. The total will increase to 200 in 2011 and 250 in 2012.
* To be eligible for the scholarship, a student's primary carer(s) must not be a beneficiary of a trust, and the carer(s) must have a yearly gross income of $65,000 or less and a net worth of $150,000 or less.
* Applications are chosen randomly from a ballot and successful applicants are required to enrol in a school independently.