Ooops! School's out for the minister

By PAULA OLIVER

Education Minister Trevor Mallard went to woo new voters at Sacred Heart College in Lower Hutt yesterday -only to find most had been rostered home because of teachers' industrial action.

The school had arranged for candidates to meet its older students, but many of them were among the 31,200 Year 13 (7th form) students disrupted by the dispute.

Instead, Mr Mallard found himself grilled by younger students who demanded to know what he was doing to end the strife and to sort out the new, but disrupted, National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

Seated in pews in the school chapel that Mr Mallard helped to build as a young man, they fired questions at him .

"If the budget shows a $2.6 billion surplus, why isn't education one of your top priorities?" asked one student.

"I'm a Year 11 student who has been a guinea pig for the NCEA. I want to know why it hasn't been better prepared and organised," another said.

One of the biggest concerns of Year 11 students was that they would not get a specific mark for their work.

Frustration with the dispute was obvious on both sides.

Mr Mallard said education was a priority for the Government and cited progress in apprenticeships, tertiary education and literacy programmes as evidence.

The Government wanted the teachers' dispute to be settled and would wear whatever the arbitrators decided.

"If the panel says the Government is wrong, we'll pay," he said.

At the end of the forum, several students approached Mr Mallard. He chatted with them and drew a diagram to show what their NCEA certificate would look like.

Eventually, running late, he waved and drove off.

He probably won't return today: the Year 12 students are rostered home.

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