Population boom spurs 40 new schools

Imagine going to school in an office block.

In New Zealand, where verdant fields and tree-lined playgrounds are the pride of every school community, the very idea seems an anathema to the traditional Kiwi way of life. However, it could become a reality if plans being developed by the Ministry of Education to cope with Auckland's soaring population come to fruition.

The ministry is planning 40 new schools for the city over the next 15 years in a construction programme estimated to cost at least $500 million over the next decade.

The sudden growth could mean the establishment of styles of schools previously unseen in New Zealand - such as schools based out of downtown office blocks.

Auckland's projected growth bucks the national trend, which is expected to see primary school rolls dropping by almost 65,000 by the year 2020 and secondary rolls peaking in 2008 before sharply declining.

The educational building boom follows a lengthy lull that ended in 2004 with the opening of Botany Downs Secondary College and Alfriston College - the first state secondary schools built in New Zealand since 1978.

Waiheke Island Primary, Albany Junior High, Baverstock Oaks School and Whangaparaoa College opened this year.

Brenda Radford, network provision manager at the ministry's Auckland office, says officials are keeping an open mind on how many new schools might be needed. However, 40 is the current estimate of what the region needs by 2021. Another five schools are also due to be relocated over the same period.

Plans for any new schools are likely to be finalised about 18-30 months before they are due to open, says Radford. "The ultimate thing is that the population is going to double over the next 25 years and originally it was planned to double over the next 50 years. It's all happening much faster in many hot-spot parts of the city - much faster than anybody envisaged."

Auckland's primary age rolls are projected to grow by around 15,000 by 2026, while the number of secondary students is forecast to increase by 9000.

The population explosion is due to high immigration, relocation from elsewhere in New Zealand, ex-pats returning home, and natural population growth.

The main hot spots are in Albany, the Hibiscus Coast, Flat Bush, Hobsonville and Takanini, while Snells Beach and the Tamaki Edge are also firmly on the ministry's radar.

It has already purchased 17 sites around the Auckland region, and is negotiating to buy a further five.

The list of planned schools also includes a primary school in downtown Auckland, although a site has not yet been finalised.

The new schools are intended to accommodate just half of the expected population increase, with existing schools expected to expand to take in the rest.

However, the need for so many new schools isn't immediately obvious to all principals.

One sceptic is John Morris, principal of Auckland Grammar, which is facing the prospect of a new college being built at nearby Alexandra Park.

Plans for the controversial 2000-student college were shelved last year after struggles to gain resource consent, but it is still on the ministry map, with a scheduled opening date of sometime after 2009.

"One of the issues around here is that there are a couple of schools in the central Auckland area which do have spare space," says Mr Morris. "And it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to be building new schools when you've got others with spare space because the whole point of zoning was that you used up existing schools to their full potential."

The official Auckland Regional Growth Strategy sets out a plan for constraining growth within the current metropolitan limits, meaning the city must now expand upwards, rather than outwards.

Partly because of that, it is becoming harder to find decent-sized sites that are suitable for schools, especially in heavily populated urban areas, says Radford. And that pressure will affect the size and shape of schools in the future.

"As the years go by we're probably going to have to put the schools on much smaller sites than we have done in the past. And possibly eventually even in office blocks."

The nature of schooling itself might well change as the city fills up.

"It will become more like an international city where you have different forms of schooling."

One school to have already surfed the demographic wave is Pinehill School in Browns Bay, which opened nine years ago. Founding principal Julien Le Sueur, who is also president of the Auckland Primary Principals Association, says existing schools often don't take kindly to new schools opening up nearby.

"A new school opening tends to be viewed in the community as being more up-to-date, better equipped, better resourced, et cetera ... The consequence of all that is that the schools that are clustered around the site of a new school sometimes find that they may be suffering from roll fluctuations."

When Pinehill opened its doors, there was initially a negative reaction from some of the neighbouring schools, he says. "But looking back over nine years, everybody is more than comfortable and rolls haven't suffered, I don't think."

Michael Jackson, principal of Albany Junior High School, which opened earlier this year, echoes Le Sueur's comments. His school also experienced problems with neighbouring schools.

"Other schools are concerned about losing students because it affects their staffing and funding ... They're very wary of new schools. Also because you are new and your facilities are all brand new you can be seen as quite a threat to the existing schools."

But Le Sueur says the idea that principals should be nervous about schools opening nearby is "folly". "I'm a firm believer in the opinion that if you're running a good school you've got nothing to worry about."

- Herald on Sunday