July 01, 2014
No appetite for ACT extreme
Education Minister Hekia Parata is ruling out adopting ACT’s new education policy any time soon.
ACT leader Jamie Whyte wants all state schools to have the option to become charter schools.
He says they could be bulk-funded according to the number of students they attract, and he claims it would lead to dramatic improvements in the performance of schools, especially those teaching children from poor families
Ms Parata says parents already have a wide range of choices including kura kaupapa Maori, special character schools, and the five existing partnership schools.
" We have a second round that we have called for but we've also made a decision that we won't be doing anymore until we complete an evaluation of the first two so it's not my intenion that all of our two and a half thousand schools should change overnight into something else. I'm very satisfied with the range of options available to parents now. No I won't be proposing that option" says Minister Parata.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH HEKIA PARATA CLICK ON THE LINK
http://www.waateanews.com/play_podcast?podlink=MTk2MzU=
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