Turei Metiria: Budget Debate 
Turei Metiria: Budget Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13734] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Greens support the Government’s additional spending on education particularly in early childhood. The plan for 3 and 4-year-olds to eventually get 20 hours’ free childcare at community-based centres is a very good thing but that is 3 whole years away and covers only this age group. We need the support now urgently. 
Some funding for special-needs children in early childhood is equally needed and gratefully received by parents. Much of this good work is risked when these children reach primary and secondary school where they will be subject to a public education system that is grossly underfunded. 
Our schools are in crisis. Ongoing resourcing scheme funding has not increased so special-needs students in primary school still miss out. We can give teachers laptops but they are useless without funding for professional development and technical support. asTTLe and other assessment aids need resources attached to them to alleviate the workload problems that will only lead to frustration and burnout in our teachers and the failure of those tools to achieve their aims. 
In 2003 the Government recorded a $5.5 billion Budget surplus yet the flow of funds to primary and secondary schools over recent years has not relieved any of the funding pressure on schools and teachers. This in turn means that the quality of public education is under threat by not so much creeping as galloping user-pays. 
The right to a free education has been enshrined in New Zealand law since 1877. Schools can charge mandatory fees and enforce those fees in only very limited circumstances. Other than that donations are entirely voluntary. But because of their funding pressures schools are not being clear about these voluntary donations and are therefore increasing pressure on the community and parents. 
One recent case was that of the boy who was banned from his school ball because his family had not paid his school fees. The family has now complained to the Human Rights Commission and schools are justifiably nervous about the ramifications of the commission’s decision given that they rely on the thousands of dollars that parents pay in fees to run their schools. Then there is the debt collection agency that helped 10 schools recover subject fees despite protests from parents who believed that they contradicted the principle of free compulsory education in this country. How many schools and families are now involved in this? 
The fact is that fees and donations are now seriously critical to the funding of schools because operations funding is dismally inadequate. From 1992 to 2001 Government operations funding for each student in secondary schools rose by 30 percent but school fund-raising—school fees subject fees and cake stalls—increased by a staggering 173 percent. Put another way schools must now find 17 percent of their basic operational funding from parents and the community. Our public education institutions schools and universities are increasingly relying on parents and students to make up the Government’s funding shortfall. 
By comparison in the past 4 years funding to private tertiary education providers has increased from just $17 million a year when Labour first took office to well over $150 million a year. This funding for private tertiary education has exploded despite concerns over the quality management and accountability of many of these tertiary courses. 
Then of course we have the Budget announcement of an extra $40 million for the marketing of international students and the provision of international scholarships which benefit the private sector and subject the funding of public schools to the vagaries of the international education market. This is not sustainable secure and quality provision of education to New Zealand children. It is gambling with their education and New Zealand’s future. 
So-called donations—that is school fees—have increased rapidly over the past decade just as tertiary education fees along with student debt have skyrocketed. The continued bulk funding of schools and universities is disguising the underfunding of schools and opens the door for galloping user-pays—a user-pays philosophy that resonates much more with the elitist conservative right wing than the apparently socially responsible Labour tradition.