Editorial: Grammar avoids childish nonsense

Some of the more popular public schools have fought hard to retain the right to select pupils from far and wide. They have lost the battle. Schools that receive more applicants than they can accommodate are once more obliged by law to declare a zone within which all residents have the right to send their children to the school.

That was National's doing, mainly at the behest of its previous MP for Epsom, Christine Fletcher, whose constituents sorely wanted an automatic right to attend Auckland Grammar School. Labour has taken the reversal a step further, legislating to forbid schools from selecting among out-of-zone applicants to fill any places left over. Names must now be drawn from a hat.

In the face of such childish nonsense, who can blame the schools for devising ways around the legislation? They may have found one. Auckland Grammar, for example, has just drawn a proposed zone so large that the school is unlikely to accommodate all the pupils from it. The school will have to make a selection, and since the pupils are not out of zone, the selection can probably be made on criteria more sensible than a lucky dip.

It is typical of the phony egalitarianism gripping this Government that it finds fairness and equality in a game of chance. Lotteries are fine for fun but education can be vital to the realisation of a person's potential in life. Why should a child not be allowed to bid for selection to a school on the strength of his or her attitude, talents and potential?

The Government is less concerned about that child's chances in life than the fact that open selection allows some schools to draw the "cream" from others. That indeed can happen, to the detriment of the other schools. But the "cream" has rights, too. It is only fair that a child showing particular aptitudes - scholarly, sporting, musical or any other - should be able to go where there are others of similar talents and their potential might be best developed.

All pupils should have equal opportunity to impress their desired school at an interview or an entry examination. They should not lose out on the luck of a draw, though the Government plainly hopes enough of them will. That the way the cream may be spread more thinly.

In this sorry quest for enforced uniformity the Government is principally paying its electoral debts to the teachers' unions, who would sooner see Grammar restricted to those who can afford the nearby real estate.

The unions cannot abide competition in any form between schools. Thus bulk-funding - the power of schools to manage their own staffing budget if they wished - has been abolished and yesterday some of those schools that had taken the opportunity were put on smaller rations.

Like the abolition of zoning, bulk-funding was more truly egalitarian than the alternative. When teachers are all paid from Wellington, as the unions prefer, the taxpayer's contribution to schools of similar size can vary greatly, depending on the stability and seniority of the staff. A school in a better-off area is more likely to attract and keep the more experienced teachers.

By contrast, when schools are paid a bulk grant based on their rolls, public finance is allocated more equitably and the funds follow the preferences of pupils, not teachers. It is sad that the Government is now doing the reverse, but heartening that schools such as Auckland Grammar are doing their best to resist the regimentation and cast their net of opportunity as widely as they can.