Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Turei Metiria: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:625;Page:20367] 
10.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education 
: Does he believe that isolated rural children are just as entitled to a quality public education as any other New Zealand child; if so why? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes. The Government wants all students to achieve in schooling and a number of measures are in place to support isolated rural schools. These include the Staffing Incentive Allowance and the Isolation Allowance which are aimed at helping rural schools to recruit staff. Annual funding for 560 isolated rural schools increased by 12.5 percent to nearly $8 million a year through Targeted Funding for Isolation which is a component of the operations grant. New funding of $19.7 million over 4 years has been allocated to give area schools more teachers extra salary units to help recruit and retain staff and increased operational funding from 2005. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister support the decision by the ministerially appointed board of the Correspondence School to sack 35 of its staff including 24 regional representatives; and does he agree with the Rural Women New Zealand spokesperson that: “In the past regional representatives have ensured the Correspondence School did a very good job in providing personalised teaching targeting the unique situation of a child. Without home visits this will be more difficult.”; if not why not? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am advised that recent decisions made by the Correspondence School board have been made in response to the changing demographic of its students. Under the new management arrangement a new dedicated 15-person national student liaison team will work in four regions: northern North Island central North Island lower North Island and South Island. Their specific tasks will be to provide pastoral support and guidance to students and to establish relationships with whanau and hapu. Currently over 4500 Maori students are on the school’s roll. I also comment further that I have seen a report from the West Coast’s  
Greymouth 
Evening Star 
 that quotes a local principal who talked about support mechanisms for Correspondence School students. He said that the school had already trialled protocols that had its staff—the local face-to-face school staff—acting as mentors to its students studying by correspondence. So he did not anticipate any great changes. 
Jill Pettis 
: How many children attend the Correspondence School because of geographical isolation? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Of the roll of around 18000 only 1200 students can be accurately described as geographically isolated students. Of those around 700 are early childhood enrolments. There is clearly a need to ensure that the geographic distribution of Correspondence School resources matches that of the school’s changing roll. 
Metiria Turei 
: What is the Minister doing to address the real problems in the Correspondence School which were identified by parents as: “You can’t send kids who fail at school home to sit at a kitchen table with a booklet and expect them to catch up on their remedial reading by themselves. It’s not OK for the Minister to neglect the needs of our farm and rural kids in order to slap a band-aid on the supporting sore of urban school failure.”; and why is the Minister doing nothing to make the board address these issues? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The Government is doing a great deal to support students who have special needs and that is why since 2001 there has been a 34 percent increase I am advised in the funding of the Correspondence School alone—from $32 and one-third million to some $43.5 currently. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is the Minister aware that the loss of 35 pastoral care positions will mean that by the time of the next Education Review Office review the school is unlikely to be compliant with the National Education Guidelines and will therefore once again be in danger of being closed down; and is that the real intent of the Government here—to force the Correspondence School to close? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No and I am rather surprised that the member thinks she can anticipate the result of a review yet to take place. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why did the Government bail out the Modern Age English language school the Taranaki Polytechnic with $7.5 million and Te Wananga o Aotearoa with $20 million according to yesterday’s announcement yet refuse the $5.5 million to help the Correspondence School—a school that the Government has used as a dumping ground for 5000 at-risk students who are often not suited to this form of distance learning? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am not sure what figures the member is using but I tell her that in addition to base-line funding $6.592 million of viability-funding support was made available to the Correspondence School in the 2004 calendar year. The Correspondence School drew $5.635 million against this funding to meet its 2004 deficit.