The Government's crackdown on student loan borrowers in Australia has stepped up a notch.

More 18-year-olds are leaving school with NCEA Level 2 - a "stand-out" achievement in Government education targets.

Minister of Education Hekia Parata will be making a big move after she finishes her role in government next year.

Requests for help from the Ministry of Education's traumatic incident team are coming in on more than a daily basis.

Around $2.1 million will be invested to build a total of six new classrooms at schools in the Wellington and Kapiti regions, Education Minister Hekia Parata announced today.

A taxi driver who repeatedly molested a special needs teenager has been denied parole.

COMMENT: The first time our son stuttered I burst out laughing. By the next day he could barely get a word out at all and it wasn't a laughing matter.

The Ministry of Education has put schools on notice: stop using cell-like seclusion rooms as punishment immediately.

Education Minister Hekia Parata revealed that 8 of the 64 special schools in New Zealand are using a seclusion room.

Mandatory CCTV cameras in special needs transport is still not in place, more than a year after the Ministry of Education vowed it was imminent.

Principal advocate says difficult students may be informally removed but additional support was needed or all other students bore the brunt.

Cambridge High School and Ngaruawahia High School Waikato will both undergo major redevelopments at a cost of $17 million.

COMMENT: Recent cases indicate violence between and against children is widely accepted.

The Chief Ombudsman will investigate the use of seclusion rooms in schools, following reports that locked "time out" rooms had been used to restrain children.

The Ministry of Education is due to release a report into a cell-like seclusion room used by a Wellington primary school as punishment.

Around $9 million will be invested in the redevelopment of Edgecumbe College in the Bay of Plenty, Education Minister Hekia Parata

LEAVE: Ngarimu Simpkins, pictured in court this week, has gone on leave while Rotorua Boys' High School makes a decision about his

An independent inquiry should immediately investigate the use of "time out" rooms in schools, says the head of the national Autism charity.

More than 1300 schools will be worse off as a result of a radical new funding system, the Herald can reveal.

The release of seclusion and restraint guidelines to teachers faced with violent and extreme situations has been delayed due to legal problems.

Teachers are demanding to know if they risk police charges for physically separating school fights or defending themselves when students attack.

The news that teachers fear legal action for stopping school fights underlines what a hard job school teaching must be.

The Productivity Commission is toying with the idea that secondary school students begin a savings fund for university.

Putting interest back on student loans is being categorically ruled out, as the Government eyes changes to tertiary education.

Herald investigation: Some teenagers are taking spurious NCEA standards - learning about toilet cleaning, household shopping and shift work.

The number of "extra" teachers paid by schools has shot up by more than 50 per cent over the past four years, new figures show.

Within minutes of walking into her first high-school physics class Amelia Unufe felt like an outsider.

A Herald investigation has found deep disparities hidden beneath rising high school pass-rates tied to students' socio-economic status and ethnicity.

COMMENT: Funding for schools should be focused on what matters most: education.

School-age students will be able to enrol in an accredited online learning provider instead of attending school, under new Government legislation.