Boys could attract more education funding under 'controversial' new model

Gender could end up being one of the "risk" factors in a new model that determines funding for disadvantaged students. Photo/123RF

Being male could be included as one of a set of "controversial" new risk indicators used to work out which students receive extra education funding.

Documents released to the Herald reveal details of a proposed "disadvantage index" designed to replace the outdated decile model.

According to a Cabinet paper, the new system could be up to 20 percent more accurate in targeting at-risk students. The proposal is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Education's funding review panel.

Unlike decile ratings, which are drawn the socio-economic characteristics of a school's neighbourhood, the new index would use children's individual characteristics to predict their likelihood of school failure.

The model was built by analysing a real cohort - children born in 1998 - and examining which factors in their lives were correlated with whether or not they achieved NCEA Level 2.

It found five factors were most predictive - the proportion of time the children were supported by benefits since birth; if the child had a CYF notification; their gender (namely, if they were male); their mother's age at their birth; and their father's offending and sentence history.

A range of other factors - including ethnicity and transience - also contributed to a child's risk of underachievement, but were not as strong as those in the first group.

Children were considered at low or high risk on the index due to their full combination of life factors, not because they had one specific factor or not.

Some factors carried more weight than others in the new model.

In a briefing to educationalists, associate deputy secretary of education Damian Edwards recognised the idea was a sensitive topic.

"All relevant factors have been included in the index including factors that could be more controversial (gender and ethnicity)," Edwards said. "This maximises the predictive accuracy of the index."

"Work with the sector suggests that if properly communicated, the inclusion of all the relevant factors is likely to have support."

The model is yet to be made Government policy, however recent reports from Treasury said if it was, it had the potential to

"significantly affect" two-thirds of the school system.

The author acknowledged some of the factors would be controversial.

PPTA president Jack Boyle said the new measures looked like they would be more reliable, however as well as identifying those most in need, the government needed to properly resource schools to help them - particularly schools with a high concentration of such students.

He was also concerned it could have adverse affects, asking for careful evaluation to ensure other children were not missing out because of currently unforeseen consequence or weakness in the data.

NZEI President Lynda Stuart said the government needed to provide more money "not just new ways to cut the pie". She was also concerned about privacy.

"We have always been concerned about the potential for kids or schools to be stigmatised by a model that marks them as disadvantaged based on their ethnicity family background, or any other factor. And I haven't yet seen anything that reduces that concern.

Current information suggests that to ensure children were not identified, schools would be given the extra funding in bulk each year, and then required to spend it addressing disadvantage.

The Ministry of Education said it was important to remember the model was not yet policy, and work was ongoing.

It refused to release the bulk of the documents in the scope of the Herald's request for information about the funding review, saying it was protecting the confidentiality of advice tendered by officials.

View the documents here: