Wednesday, June 06, 2012



Looking out for their own

As we all know by now, National is cutting education, increasing class sizes in state schools on the Treasury logic that this will make them perform better. Meanwhile, its doling out $57 million a year to private schools to keep their class sizes - and fees - low. A case in point is Wanganui Collegiate, which is getting $1.5 million a year for the next two years to subsidize its fees - half a million more than neighbouring (but lower decile) Wanganui City College, despite having a hundred fewer students.

Again, its one education system for the rich, and another for the rest of us. And guess which one Ministers send their kids to? It smacks of them simply looking out for their own - and in the process, indirectly feathering their own nests.

We should not be subsidising this two-tier system. If the rich want smaller class sizes in their socially-segregated snob-schools, they can pay for them themselves.