A Christchurch City Councillor is raising serious questions about the Minister of Education's decision-making process and the motivation for not taking greater time than that announced to deliberate on school closures in eastern Christchurch.

Cr. Glenn Livingstone, who represents the ward of Burwood/Pegasus, where the Minister of Education, the Hon. Hekia Parata, announced the closure and merger options of several schools today, says "I am disturbed that the Minister is making these announcements prior to the completion of Chief Ombudsman Dame Beverley Wakem's investigation into the way in which the Ministry of Education has conducted its consultation on school closures and mergers. That investigation will be completed in the second half of this year. Why isn't the Minister waiting for the outcome of that investigation?"

In the Minister's announcements today, Burwood will merge with Windsor and schools in New Brighton will consult on two new proposals that arose after the interim decision was announced. The initial proposal was to merge North New Brighton and Freeville, and Central New Brighton and South New Brighton. The new proposal is to either merge North New Brighton, Freeville and South New Brighton schools, or close Central New Brighton School and also finalise the interim decision to merge North New Brighton and Freeville schools.

This means the proposed merger of Central New Brighton and South New Brighton will not go ahead, and the interim decision to merge Freeville and North New Brighton is deferred until further consultation has been completed. Those school boards have until 10 July 2013 to provide feedback to the Minister on these proposals.

Livingstone says that equally disturbing is the fact that, while the government demands hard data to prove there is a housing crisis in Christchurch, it is proceeding to close and merge schools without any quantitative basis. "This is evidence that these closures have always been an idea waiting for a disaster to happen", he says.

"This from the Ministry that deduced from an aerial photograph that the sand at Burwood School was liquefied material, when it was in fact the school's long-jump pit! How much confidence can we have in the accuracy of the Ministry's data-gathering and conclusions?"

Livingstone is frustrated that the Minister went through with making the announcements today, saying that school boards have until July to respond, despite census data not being available until December 2013. "How is the Minister able to make these announcements and tell school boards to respond by mid year without due regard to the 2013 Census information, which, when released at the end of the year, will indicate changes in population?" Cr. Livingstone asked. "We know that most red-zone residents from the Burwood/Pegasus ward have indicated a desire to re-settle in the East, and with the Prestons development coming on-stream, there is likely to be future population growth in the east rather than decline. Yet, even this has not been taken into account."

Livingstone says that the announcements by the Minister today "are another blow to the communities of the east, who have been struggling since the first earthquake on September the 4th 2010."

ENDS

© Scoop Media