Decile replacement not enough without much more money

31 July 2017

A replacement for school deciles will be merely shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic, unless schools and early childhood centres get an immediate and large jolt in funding to fix years of neglect, NZEI Te Riu Roa says.

The Government today announced it will replace the decile funding scheme with a new formula that attaches funding to children deemed to be "at risk" of educational underachievement, beginning in 2019 or 2020.

However the announcement was short on detail, promising only that no schools or services would lose funding, while most would gain under the model.

"Unless schools and early childhood services get a major and immediate funding jolt, any new way to divvy up funding will be a bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic," NZEI president Lynda Stuart said.

"We'll be glad to see the end of the stigmatising aspects of the decile funding scheme, but the main issue facing schools and early childhood services is a dire lack of funding.

"Though the Minister has promised no school or service will be worse off under the new scheme, we don't know what that means in practice.

"In ECE there are big questions about the scrapping of equity funding as a result of this change.

"It's time for the Government to stop scrimping on children's education and provide what's needed for every child to have the best education in the world.

"This election we're asking for New Zealanders to pledge to vote for parties who put children first and promise the better funding for better learning that kids need," Mrs Stuart said.

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