| Description | (August 2009) This paper provides a brief background to the passage of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975 and then summarises some of the concerns about the act’s operation since then. The main problem is that integration has allowed a number of private schools to integrate into the public system and receive full funding for teacher salaries, operations and a significant proportion of property costs, yet still charge parents substantial “donations”. The paper also raises broader questions about the watering down of the special character requirements in the act to a point where they have become little more than a device to select students from wealthy backgrounds, the increasing number of religious-based schools in an imagined “secular system”, the cost to all New Zealanders of allowing the continued creation of small, expensive-to-operate secondary schools, and the appropriateness of religiously “tagged” positions. It reiterates the PPTA position, which is that, having served its purpose, the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act should be repealed and no further schools should be integrated. Instead, the sections of the Education Act that allow the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori schools (s155) and “designated special character” schools (s156) should be used to set up new schools under the jurisdiction of the minister of education. Existing integrated schools can also be re-established under section 156 so all state schools are treated fairly. |
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