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Associate Education Minister John Banks is defending the new partnership schools as a solution to Maori educational under-achievement.
The ACT leader demanded state-funded private schools as part of his support agreement with National.
The first five providers named last week include two Northland trusts, one of whom is already running a boarding programme for high school students which instils military-style discipline.
There’s also Advanced Training Centres, which runs an Auckland academy that prepares troubled teens for careers in the police or defence forces.
Mr Banks says he’s seen that model working.
" They take kids from under privilleged backgrounds. Young people that are struggling, often through the court systems with the police and CYPS, Maori and Pacifika except for a few who are European, including my own son Alex, who struggled at the finest school that money can buy and they put them through the course. 85 per cent of them got NCEA Level 2 and 88 per cent of them got jobs" he says
John Banks says that compares with the mainstream, where in some regions just one in five Maori boys pass NCEA.
Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Angela Roberts says partnership schools are about opening up the education system to privatisation rather than rescuing a few kids.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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