New Zealand's neediest young people are missing out on education - and the consequences could hurt everyone. We report in the first of a five-part series
New Zealand's neediest young teenagers are often being educated in "Third World" conditions without trained teachers, textbooks or standard school services.
A Weekend Herald investigation has found that only a handful of the 260 tutors in the country's 163 "alternative education" centres have teaching qualifications because the sector's budget - frozen for a decade - has fallen far behind teachers' salaries and other costs.
Yet most of the 1820 youngsters aged 13 to 15 who attend the centres come from the country's poorest and most troubled families, often coping with drug and alcohol addictions, domestic violence, gang connections and frequent moves.
Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft says their tutors are "the community's most important frontline warriors in the fight against youth crime".
Auckland University youth health researcher Terry Fleming, who has visited about 20 of the centres, says most are ill equipped, with few textbooks or sometimes no computers.
"Most of the time they've taken over buildings which wouldn't have been used because they're cold and uninsulated, don't have decent chairs and there aren't any Biros," she said.
"It's the kind of thing you might see an appeal for raising money for Third World countries overseas.
"If we were to say to the parent of a New Zealand teenager: 'Would you like your kid to go to a school with no sporting facilities, no technology resources, no computer resources, no library, and actually we haven't got very many textbooks and it's really cold so they'd better bring a jumper - how's that?"'
Conditions in the centres vary widely.
At one extreme, Youthline employs a fulltime qualified teacher for 12 students downstairs at its Auckland head office. Her salary is paid by the Lion Foundation out of poker machine profits.
But Crosspower Ministries in Otara runs its centre for 14 students in a disused community centre with no computers and has been unsuccessfully lobbying the Manukau City Council for three years to fix a gaping hole in the verandah floor.
Charitable trust Te Ara Poutama teaches 28 students in a vacant clothing factory which has barely changed since the clothing company moved out, because alternative education has no guaranteed funding after this year.
The Ministry of Education recommended last year that the current system be "disestablished" and replaced by "new models that support better outcomes for young people".
But it backed off after a consultation with school principals found 65 per cent opposed reallocating the funding to each school on a per-student basis. Education Minister Anne Tolley is now considering other options.
Judge Becroft says mainstream schools are "not resourced to deal with the extreme end of conduct disorder or alcohol and drug dependency".
"Effectively we have a parallel alternative system," he said. "If we are going to have a parallel system, then they've both got to be A-plus.
"When you visit some of the alternative education centres, it looks like an A system and a C system.
"That just can't be right for our toughest kids."
SEEKING ANSWERS
Saturday: Alternative education.
Teens in Third World schooling
When the mainstream model doesn't fit
A far better alternative to dropping out
Monday: Truancy and dropouts.
School dropout levels fall over past 10 years
Tuesday: Issues of transience.
Message sinking in: switching schools bad for kids
Absenteeism often cry for help
Transient students struggle to catch up
Wednesday: Who kicks kids out?
Second chance works well for student
Expulsion seen as tool of last resort
Aorere strives to improve record
Thursday: What can be done?
Help for those who fall through cracks
Trust moves in well before students get out of control
Schools can't do it all on their own
