Class size policy - slip sliding away

new-zealand-national-party

Tue Jun 19 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Class size policy - slip sliding away

Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 4:57 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Katherine Rich MP
National Party Education Spokeswoman

19 June 2007

While the Education Minister continues to pretend there has been no shift in Labour's policy on class sizes for new entrants, official information documents released by National clearly show the opposite, says National's Education spokeswoman, Katherine Rich.

"The papers show Steve Maharey deliberately attempted to distract the education sector's attention from Labour's promise of restricting junior classes to 15 kids.

"In the 2005 election, Labour made the clear promise that it would 'employ around 1,300 extra primary teachers in Year 1 classes over the next three years to ensure that by 2008 there are no more than 15 students in a class.'

"The Minister, hoping no one would notice, then announced in the Budget that the ratio would be 1:18 by the second term in 2008.

"How the Minister could stand during Parliament's question time and pretend that the dilution of his policy was not a broken promise beggars belief. The facts are so clear.

"The Minister gave categorical assurances to Parliament that there has been no change in Labour's policy when copies of the Minister's work programme prove the opposite is correct."

Official documents state that by mid-2007, in time for budget 2007, the Minister aimed to 'reposition' the issue as smaller class sizes in the junior school, rather than a fixed ratio and 'to use speeches to talk about smaller class sizes rather than just 1:15 ratio'

"The document also notes the Minister did this through an 'NZEI speech and questions'.

"The Minister can't honestly expect the sector to believe that he has not broken another election promise when documents clearly prove otherwise. If there had not been a change, why take time to 'reposition' the issue and release a totally different ratio in the Budget? "

ENDS

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