Picking pupils

New Zealand has 2343 state schools, 399 or 17 per cent of which operate enrolment schemes, giving them control over the pupils they allow into their classrooms.

Recent unpublished research in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch indicates that an increasing number of pupils attend schools with such schemes.

It also suggests that better-off schools are more likely to have enrolment schemes than schools with low socio-economic status.

The research, by United States Fulbright scholars Helen Ladd and Ted Fiske, found that 56 per cent of primary pupils in Auckland attend schools with enrolment schemes. Five years ago the figure was 15 per cent.

In Christchurch, 55 per cent of primary students go to such schools, up from 7 per cent in 1993.

Ladd and Fiske found that 86 per cent of Auckland's secondary schools classified as decile 9 and 10 -- education jargon for those at the top of the socio-economic scale -- had enrolment schemes, compared with just 28 per cent of decile 1 and 2 schools.

In Wellington, 89 per cent of decile 9 and 10 secondary schools had schemes. In Christchurch the figure was 100 per cent.

In both cities no school under decile 5 had schemes.

The Fulbright project will be published next year.