Deborah Coddington needs maths lessons

"It is time that Deborah Coddington went to a few of her lessons at Cambridge University and brushed up on her maths,” Education Minister Trevor Mallard said today.

"But then again she could come back to New Zealand and get a seminar on how our education system works. In New Zealand as opposed to England where she currently resides, schools are often technically closed when they are merged.

“The absent Deborah forgets that many of the schools she refers to in her statement as being closed still have hundreds of pupils in them. The idea of selling them off, with students and teachers as a job lot, might be Act policy but is not what this Government is on about.

"Miss Coddington claims there have been an average of eight closures a year since I became Minister, three and a half years ago, but then in the next line of a very silly statement claims there were 33 in 2001. Her numeracy needs work.

"She claims that 10,000 pupils have been affected by closures, but the facts are that only about 3,000 have been affected by closures and mergers and of those only a few hundred have not been as a result of school mergers.

"In fact several of the schools I have closed have had a teacher but no pupils. No doubt Act would want the taxpayer to keep the school.

"There is a real issue around school disposal. Unfortunately most schools that are closed are in rural areas or in suburbs that have been depopulated. The property is therefore very hard to sell and in some cases even to give away." Trevor Mallard said.

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