School marketing hits TV screens

WELLINGTON - Rongotai College is upping the ante in the battle for Wellington secondary pupils by advertising on television - a first for a state secondary school.

Principal Graeme Jarratt said the advertisements, which began this week on TV3, aimed to encourage parents and prospective pupils to look at the college.

The ads would run until the school's enrolment evening next Tuesday.

The school had discovered that TV advertising was not much more expensive than radio - a medium the school had used in the past, Mr Jarratt said.

"The issue is funding is done on pupil numbers - if you get more pupils you get more money."

Marketing was something schools should not have to do but it was a reality today, he said.

"I think a lot of the reforms of Tomorrow's Schools haven't been helpful to instruction in the classroom. They have forced schools to do more administration and marketing.

"But it's no good complaining, it's one of the things we have to live with. If you don't promote yourself, people will think you don't care and don't have anything to promote."

Rongotai College could comfortably take 1000 pupils but had only 580 this year.

The ads, for which Mr Jarratt declined to give the cost, were being funded by sponsorship money.

The president of the Post Primary Teachers' Association, Graeme Macann, said it was the first time he had heard of a state secondary school advertising on TV.

It was a tragedy that schools were spending scarce resources on marketing.

It was ironic that the schools doing it were not well off, he said. The high-decile schools, which served well-off communities and had enrolment schemes in place, spent little on marketing.

Mr Macann hoped the Education Amendment Bill going through Parliament would force schools to ballot places for students outside the school zone and stop good students being lured to sought-after schools.

- NZPA