KEY POINTS:
It's all very well for Education Minister Anne Tolley to declare war on the estimated 30,000 schoolchildren who play truant every week - but what's she going to do with them when they're dragged back to the classroom?
Classical liberals such as Adam Smith reminded us formal education is more than sitting in a classroom all day, passing tests. As well as reading, writing and arithmetic, students could be taken out to the community, to learn in hospitals, from the blacksmith, in construction, farming, the grocery store and the church.
It's a national disgrace that 4.1 per cent of the nation's 750,000 primary and secondary students skip school, but we should look at why they hate school so much they continually wag.
We don't even know if that's the correct number, as it's three years out of date. No official survey has been taken since 2006. It seems education officials have simply put truancy in the too-hard basket. An unnamed official this week said the Government was fighting a losing battle against a "truancy tidal wave".
The minister would be justified in going ballistic over this cavalier attitude from those guardians of compulsory education.
Last year's survey, labelled as "crucial" for supplying up-to-date figures, was ditched. Some bright spark decided an electronic tracking system would be better, but surprise, surprise, only 250 of the 2700 schools used it. Don't schools have enough to do already, with all the compliance issues they're bombarded with each week from the bureaucrats? Did the Ministry expect principals, teachers and boards to find more time in their already overcrowded days and take up with gusto this latest toy from Wellington?
If pigs sprouted wings and all schools had used electronic tracking, then Tolley would have some information she needed. The ministry's response: "We share the disappointment. We feel it."
If this were the private sector there'd be more than just feeling the disappointment. Can you imagine the reaction from fee-paying parents at private schools if they were greeted with news the schools "shared the disappointment" that parents didn't know how many kids attended the school on any given day, but that it might well be up to 4 per cent fewer than the official roll?
So why do we tolerate this appalling mismanagement in the public sector? Once, on the London Underground, I spotted a supermarket ad which went something like, "You spend 4000 a year on your groceries; start demanding some service".
Time to change the words and direct the ad to the parents of kids at New Zealand's state-owned schools: "Your taxes contribute around $4000 a year to your child's school; start demanding some results".
Ah, but I forget. Schools exist not for parents or students, but for teachers and bureaucrats.
That's why only those who can afford to privately educate their children (or buy a house in an expensive suburb, thanks to school zoning) are allowed to choose.
The rest of us, while trusted to choose our car, our family doctor and our dentist, are forced to send our children to the nearest school, whether we like the education it delivers or not.
And let's face it, many schools are dire. Throw as much money at them as you like, it won't make a blind bit of difference until the education system is geared away from the politically correct, non-competitive, all-must-have-prizes garbage which bores many children to truancy.
If she's bold enough, Tolley could do New Zealand a big favour. David Cameron, should he become British Prime Minister, is hinting at copying the Swedish system of funding following the student, so groups of parents, faiths or teachers can apply to set up their own schools.
For example, specialist teachers who do a fantastic job turning around the lives of chronic truants could access more funding to attract more teachers and take on more students.
Of course bad schools will close - why should they remain open if no one wants to send their kids there?
On the other hand, good schools (defined as those favoured by parents) might take over the running of the failing schools with their buildings and equipment already established.
The unions, and John Minto [Quality Public Education Coalition], will whine, but that's their job - keeping teachers in work.
Parents, even those whose kids are wicked, genuinely want their offspring to leave school educated enough to find a job. We should trust them with more choice, prosecute them when they allow their kids to wag, and use force on the bureaucrats' bottoms, whose only admission of ineptitude is "sharing the disappointment".
