Herald on Sunday editorial: Cook Is trip for teachers looks excessive

Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School, Auckland. Photo / Supplied

Should a school use any of its funds to send teachers on a study trip overseas? That is the question the Auditor-General must answer when he investigates Blockhouse Bay Intermediate's spending of $20,000 in air fares for 12 of its staff to spend two weeks in the Cook Islands during the July school holidays last year.

Our investigation published today suggests it was at least a working trip. The group prepared with professional development courses and in the Cooks they spent most mornings in classrooms or churches on Rarotonga or Aitutaki observing local teachers and classes at work. Their afternoons were for "debriefing/reflection". They were required to keep a record and report to the rest of the staff when they returned.

But the question remains, was this a proper use of school funds? When a school organises an overseas study trip for its pupils, the cost is met by parents or fundraising for the purpose.

Principal Michael Malins says the teachers paid for their accommodation in the Cook Islands and the school paid for their flights from revenue raised from foreign fee-paying students. But the Audit Office regards any funds not raised for a specific purpose to be public money.

State schools that use their tax-funded staff and facilities to raise extra money from foreign students cannot spend it as they like. It would seem reasonable to require then to use foreign fee income to improve the education they provide to all students including, and perhaps especially, those paying the fees.

It seems unlikely the fee-paying students included those in the school with Cook Islands heritage, or those from all Pacific Islands, just 6 per cent according to its latest Education review Office report.

Ministry of Education guidelines for school boards say overseas travel must be weighed against other spending priorities such as delivering the curriculum.

Spending school funds on overseas travel could sometimes be justified, she said, though "the threshold is high". It seems the ministry knew of Blockhouse Bay Intermediate's planned teachers' jaunt with plenty of time to stop it. It will be for the Auditor-General to make a clear ruling one way or the other.

Even if he finds there was educational value for the school's small Pacific Island component, sending as many as 12 teachers seems excessive. If this was a school answerable to fee-paying parents it might not have dared do this. A state school should be held to the same account.