Herald on Sunday Editorial: Gloriavale kids need a broader education

Delahunty is worried that almost all senior students, when they finish school, go to work within Gloriavale. Few if any go on to tertiary education. Photo / Sunday

Green MP Catherine Delahunty will get plenty of support for her attempt to find out what sort of education is being provided to children in the Gloriavale school. Reading or hearing about this self-contained Christian community on the West Coast, most people probably shrug and think: to each his own. So long as no one is there against their wishes, why worry?

That is a reasonable response when considering the lives of adults. But the children? The school at Gloriavale has 161 pupils. Like all schools in New Zealand it is subject to inspection by the Education Review Office. It had an inspection in March and received a satisfactory report. The ERO found its standard of tuition suitable for its curriculum and noted the pupils achieved well in reading and mathematics.

But Delahunty is worried that almost all senior students, when they finish school, go to work within Gloriavale. Few if any go on to tertiary education. "The (ERO) report says they are prepared for some type of transition to work," she said. "From my observations, work means girls having babies at a very young age and boys working on the farm."

This may seem a domestic idyll to adults who have chosen to stay at Gloriavale but we need to know the children have a choice. Clearly they are not physically captive but they must have alternatives, and that means an education that offers them alternatives.

If the highest qualification the school provides is NCEA Level 1 and the "transition to work" consists of learning the limited menial skills required for a life of rustic simplicity, most of them are being cruelly let down. On the law of averages, most children will have the ability to gain tertiary qualifications that open the doors to a wide range of careers.

At Delahunty's request, Parliament's education and science select committee will ask the ERO some hard questions about its reports on the Gloriavale school. Such as, what is it doing for girls who want to do more with their lives than wash and iron clothes and have babies?

The office might answer that it deals with a diversity of schools these days, from charter schools with a conservative or military culture to Maori immersion academies. It may be supposed to respect each school's chosen character and evaluate its efforts in those terms. But there is, surely, a requirement on all schools to provide opportunities for students to progress to higher education and make their own way in the world.

Let adults renounce worldly ways and live in closed communities if they wish, but "unworldly" education for their children is not an option.

The state must step in.