Big roll sign where students' needs met

When addressing the recent debate over school zoning in Wanganui, MP Chester Borrows stated that the growth of Wanganui High School "has continued unabated for many years at the expense of schools (Wanganui City College and Wanganui Girls' College) which each have their features, strengths and threats".

Many within the city have echoed this sentiment, originally spurred by the comments of City College principal Peter Kaua. It is widely asserted that this imbalance in the rolls of Wanganui's three state schools (and one integrated school) is unhealthy and detrimental.

Mr Kaua has called for "some debate around the reasons why the WHS roll is soaring and the others are static or declining". Mr Borrows has said we should take "a closer look at how, where and why we place schools in Wanganui and who we prescribe shall attend them".

It is regrettable, however, that these sentiments do not have the welfare of students as their underlying motive. Because Mr Kaua admits that WHS has established itself as "the school of choice".

It follows therefore that we should seek to enable as many students as possible to attend this school. If WHS is seeing such large numbers of students knocking at its door, it indicates this is a school which has got the right formula, is offering the best options to its students and is generally outperforming its competitors in Wanganui. Yet, still, political incentives dictate that Mr Borrows would seek to "prescribe" alternative (and necessarily inferior) schools to students who are choosing to attend Wanganui High School. Little has been said for the advantages of having a larger school: greater diversity, greater economies of scale in terms of facilities, greater educational options within the school for students. Perhaps allowing one of Wanganui's smaller state schools to eventually be absorbed into the model of Wanganui High School would not be such a bad outcome for students after all. This would bring some of the largely unspecified "expenses" that are spoken of, but it would also enable more Wanganui teenagers to attend the school that has proven it has the best structures in place to provide the best education.

Enabling quality education for students must be the priority. Seeking to rebalance school rolls in Wanganui by reducing the number of students that can attend WHS would be actively prohibitive to these aims for many students and their families.

This argument is, unfortunately, politically unpalatable; as Mr Borrows himself writes, "nobody likes change" and "no one is prepared to concede on any point, if they believe that will see their own situation affected".

As such, the debate has focused around the (again, unsubstantiated) costs of roll reductions at Cullinane, City and Girls' College, rather than the way this benefits the students who could then seek their education of choice.

Mr Kaua makes a more convincing argument in relation to the positioning of Wanganui High School's zone. He argues that these imbalances are drawn along socio-economic lines due to the exclusion of areas such as Castlecliff in the WHS zone. Perhaps this does occur, but by the same token some of Wanganui's most wealthy regions, such as Durie and Bastia Hill, are also excluded from the zone as is Marton (the students identified in the Wanganui Chronicle's article probably received entry through the ballot).

To the extent that these complaints are legitimate, we should seek to adopt policies such as charter schools or school choice which enable students from less wealthy areas to attend the best schools, rather than seek to create an artificial and numerical balance with all state schools that doesn't reflect the true quality of the education these schools offer.

Education exists for the student, and enabling more students to pursue the school which provides them with the best opportunities is paramount. It is for this reason that Wanganui High School being 6 per cent over "capacity" is a virtue rather than a harm for the students.

James Penn is deputy head boy at Wanganui High School and captain of the New Zealand secondary schools' debating team.