Too high a price
"Any assessment of the impact of this funding cut needs to look at the future of the intermediate system itself."
Kaitaia Intermediate School principal Sue Arrell has a very realistic attitude in terms of the financial pressures the Government is facing.
She wasn't expecting great wads of extra cash to be thrown at education in last week's Budget, but nor was she expecting what she has described as a bombshell in the form of "savage" cuts to intermediate-level teacher numbers.
At best those cuts would see her school's classes grow to 40 children per teacher (the current maximum is ostensibly 29), at worst they would require dispensing with the technology classes that have been offered there for half a century.
Ms Arrell has pointed out that the latter option would not only deprive her pupils of educational opportunities, but would also penalise pupils from contributing schools, which bus pupils to the intermediate on a regular basis for classes in subjects ranging from cooking to woodwork.
She estimated that 10 per cent of intermediate schools around the country would be facing the same predicament. It made little practical difference whether the situation had been created inadvertently via moving funding around within Vote: Education, which she believed was aimed at enabling the pursuit of national standards and performance pay for teachers, or deliberately, and had been accepted as a fair price to pay.
She perhaps had her hopes pinned on the former, however, given that last week she began exhorting parents to make their views known to Northland MP Mike Sabin and the Prime Minister, warning that if the decision stood it would do significant damage to their children's education, and that of children to come.
It would certainly seem that the funding cut treats Kaitaia Intermediate harshly, for a saving that is unlikely to make much of a contribution to what the Government is trying to achieve.
Mind you, when tax credits are removed from children, including those who deliver the Northland Age in the pre-dawn gloom of a winter's morning for a saving of $14 million over four years, it is clear that the Government has resorted to lifting the carpet in search of 50c pieces.
On that subject it would seem rational to relieve employers of what is probably an irksome, and not inexpensive, process involved in seeing that children continue to receive what for most is a paltry tax return at the end of the year.
The same thing could be achieved, however, with a greater degree of fairness, if youngsters who were able to display that they had made the link between working and being rewarded with money were permitted to earn a modest annual sum without paying tax at all.
The cost to the Government would be minimal, and employers would no doubt be grateful.
The Minister of Finance might also consider exempting children from paying tax on interest on their savings, at least to a level that would enable those are not threatening tycoon status to retain the less than generous interest banks are paying them.
This might not be the time to be giving tax back to the people who generate it, but it does seem mean to tax the interest earned by a kid who hops on his bike in all conditions to deliver the local newspaper.
It might also encourage those children to save what they earn, sparing them from the harsh reality that their elders are well aware of, that putting money in the bank for a rainy day or to achieve some financial goal is little more rewarding than burying it in the garden.
The concerns expressed by Ms Arrell are rather more pressing than that, however, and do need to be addressed.
For a start we are entitled to know whether the potential loss of technology teachers is a planned economy or an unintended consequence of the campaign to eke out better results from fewer teachers.
Whichever it turns out to be, Mike Sabin needs to be aware of this little Budget gem's impact, and must explain why it is that this school should take such a savage hit.
It would be nice to receive that explanation before Mr Sabin convenes the first of his summits next week, where he hopes to begin laying the foundations for a revival of Northland's economic fortunes.
Removing educational opportunities for many of his constituents would not seem to be an especially propitious beginning to that process.
We are also entitled to know how much this particular provision is going to save, so we can judge whether the sacrifice is reasonable, or whether, if one might indulge in a little paranoia, rural kids are once again paying dearly for the fact they don't live in a city.
Ms Arrell claimed last week that this Budget cut would rip the heart out of intermediate education - perhaps that's part of the Government's reasoning; the writer is not aware of the current Education Minister's view of the intermediate system, but it has never been universally regarded as the best means of transitioning children from primary to secondary school.
While it might be said rural kids are more fortunate than their urban counterparts in many respects, including in terms of some aspects of their education, it is true that their educational opportunities are often severely restricted. There just aren't that many options for kids who grow up at Herekino, Waima or Kaeo, and any reduction of the few options that do exist for what might well be a very small financial saving would be grossly unfair.
Any assessment of the impact of this funding cut needs to look at the future of the intermediate system itself. It would seem reasonable to expect that a reduction in teacher numbers at intermediate schools will encourage contributing schools to recapitate, ie seek the right to retain their pupils until they end Year 8 and go to secondary school.
Several Far North schools have done that, and if more follow suit Kaitaia Intermediate might well close its doors.
Whether that would be a good thing is perhaps a moot point, but if it were to happen Far North children would still benefit greatly from the technology classes currently provided there. Woodwork and cooking classes were provided on the KIS site before the school itself began enrolling pupils, and might be again if the school were to run out of children for normal classes.
Parents are entitled to know what the future holds for the school, as far as can be predicted, and should fight for the retention of the few options their children currently enjoy.
If they don't then last week's Budget might well end up delivering the hammer blow Ms Arrell is warning of, and by then it will probably be too late to do anything about it.
And this really is a fight for parents, not one to be left to teachers or the unions that represent them. We have seen more than enough over recent years to know that the unions' ability to change a National government's educational policies is extremely limited.
The unions' raison d'etre is not to guard educational standards but to serve the best interests of their members, specifically in terms of their pay and conditions. The current Government is unlikely to listen to them when it comes to defending the future of some intermediate schools.
It will listen to parents, perhaps, if they are determined and rational. One would certainly hope a new Northland MP will listen, and that's the place to start.
