It's cash or cuts say secondary principals

By ALAN PERROTT education reporter

Financial constraints may force secondary schools to increase class sizes, cut courses and attract more foreign students, says the national principals association.

The Budget handed secondary schools an extra teacher and about $17,000 in additional cash, but these offerings were "woefully inadequate", said Bali Haque, outgoing president of the Secondary Principals' Association (Spanz).

He said secondary principals were angry about the extra demands continually being placed on schools without the resources needed to make them work.

Spanz yesterday voted to launch a campaign criticising Government funding while warning parents and students that class sizes will increase and senior courses will be cut.

Mr Haque, the Pakuranga College head, is one of about 250 secondary principals meeting in Christchurch this week.

The extra teacher provided in last week's Budget is intended to cover the four weekly "non-contact" hours teachers now have to do work outside the classroom, and the funding is to cover the costs of the NCEA internal assessments.

But Mr Haque said a single teacher would never cover the extra non-contact hours while a medium-sized school of between 800 to 1000 students needed up to $60,000 to fulfil its NCEA requirements.

Unless more assistance is provided, Mr Haque said, schools would either become more reliant on foreign fee-paying students or have to resort to cake stalls and bob-a-job days.

Acting Education Minister Steve Maharey said schools were already receiving significant funding, including $78 million over the next four years aimed in part at funding NCEA implementation, and a further $15 million to improve administration systems.

The Budget also earmarked an additional $715 million in new education spending up to 2006.

Mr Maharey said schools per-pupil funding had increased by 2 per cent and total operational funding would have increased by 28 per cent between 1999 and 2004.

But Bob Burroughs, principal of Linwood College in Christchurch, said his school was already cutting some senior courses.

He said fee-paying students made up 8 per cent of his school's roll now, but that might have to increase to 10 per cent to raise extra funds.