Teachers applaud Mallard pledge on rural closures

Trevor Mallard

A Labour Party decision that there will be no more school closures has been welcomed with applause by teachers union members.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard yesterday told the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) that there would be no more centrally planned school re-organisations once the five-year moratorium on school reviews had ended.

A spokesman yesterday said Labour had announced in its pre-election rural policy that there would be no more school reviews unless these were initiated by local communities or were the result of Education Review Office reports that children's education was at risk.

Labour had announced "there would be no Government-initiated reviews", the spokesman said.

The five-year moratorium on school reviews began in February last year.

Since 1990, 224 schools had closed, most as the result of area reviews. Of these, 118 occurred under a National Government, the spokesman said.

Mr Mallard yesterday told National Radio that Labour Party policy to retain the moratorium on future school network reviews had been in place for the past 18 months "and we announced before the election it would continue".

A process of centrally initiated school reviews had not worked with communities although the educational results had been good, Mr Mallard said.

"But the upset that they caused on the way through certainly hasn't been positive."

He said yesterday that his biggest regret was not selling the school closure policy properly.

He was asked by a teacher at the NZEI annual meeting in Wellington whether he intended to continue with school re-organisations once the five-year moratorium ended.

The NZEI said there was a round of applause by the 400 members at the meeting when Mr Mallard replied: "No."

- NZPA