Government scraps race-based school funding

The Government has announced changes to the way schools are funded due to its review on targeted policies and programmes.

Race Relations Minister Trevor Mallard today announced the first of his reviews to ensure that funding programmes are based on need not race.

About 900 schools will be affected by changes to the decile funding for schools that will remove the ethnicity weighting from the formula.

Mr Mallard said extra money would be provided from January 1 2005 to ensure that no schools will miss out on funding due to losing their ethnicity weighted funding.

Overall, Mr Mallard estimated that 2461 schools (98 per cent of all schools) would get more money as a result of the changes.

The additional funding is made up of an extra $10.5 million per year in decile-linked operational funding and a further $16.5 million in per pupil operational funding, which is equivalent to an increase of 3 per cent.

Changes would also be made to the ethnicity component of funding to community-based non-profit early childhood education services from 2006.

This would affect 2.4 per cent of the funding these services receive, but those losing out due to the formula changes would receive transitional top up funding to ensure they did not miss out.

Mr Mallard said further research was being done on public service scholarships aimed at ethnic groups as questions had been raised about their effectiveness and whether they met human rights legislation.

District Health Board funding formula was also still under review.

The seven reports released today covered the Health Ministry, Education Ministry, Culture and Heritage Ministry and the Education Review Office.

The reviews were part of the Government's reaction to National's surge in the polls after National Leader Don Brash attacked race based policies.

- NZPA