David Seymour’s charter school bill passes third reading; Labour calls it ‘a sad day’

Act leader and Associate Education Minister David Seymour. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Parliament has passed legislation to reintroduce charter schools in New Zealand following impassioned speeches by MPs and ministers in the House.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour, who is behind the bill, says charter schools will provide educators with more choice to cater to students who are under-achieving or disengaged with mainstream schooling.

But critics of the legislation say there is no evidence charter schools make a difference, and the education model would allow for privatisation and profit-making in the sector.

Education unions say the $153 million earmarked to set up 50 new or convert existing state schools to charter status would be better used improving conditions at existing state schools.

Charter schools once operated in New Zealand between 2014 and 2018, and were a long-standing Act Party policy when Act was a support party for the National Government.

Charter schools can set their own curriculum, hours and governance structure, but need to meet achievement, attendance and financial targets to keep their contracts.

Labour’s Jan Tinetti, former Minister of Education, called the passing of the legislation a “sad day” where ideology and politics was being put ahead of children.

“An absolutely horrific ideological experiment that has failed in this country once before,” she said.

“This is going to have so many issues. This is a sad, sad day for New Zealand education.”

Labour MP and former Minister of Education Jan Tinetti. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tonga Tākuta Ferris called it “completely idiotic”. He said the Government had a “juxtaposed” approach to education where it wanted standardisation in some areas and diversity in others.

Green Party MP Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan said bringing charter schools back was “not about education, it’s about privatisation”.

“It is about privatising our education sector which is already struggling. Who actually benefits from this bill? It is not the children.

“I’m flabbergasted at the fact that we are allowing this to go through under urgency.”

National MP Katie Nimon said charter schools were an opportunity to do something in the sector while National MP Grant McCallum said the charter school model was needed as not all kids thrived under the mainstream system.

Seymour said the Charter School Authorisation Board, which will oversee the schools’ performance and grant approvals for new schools, and intervene when they did not meet their targets, would be announced shortly.

The first charter schools are expected to open in term one next year.

The legislation passed today also removes requirements for early learning providers to get an ECE network approval before applying for a licence to establish a new service.

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.