Community Schools Alliance Welcomes NZEI Stance on Hubs

A white paper by the New Zealand Education Institute released today shows the growing concern among educators about the negative impact of the controversial Hub plan on New Zealand schools, the Community Schools Alliance says.

“We agree with the Institute’s conclusions about the threat the Hub plan poses to local decision-making and our community-led schools,” Glen Denham, Principal of Massey High School, said.

“It’s heartening to see the growing unity in the sector about the misconceived proposal to centralise control of our schools in bureaucratic ‘Hubs’ appointed by Wellington.”

The NZEI white paper says its members in the teaching profession fear:

• The Hub plan could result in a loss of responsiveness to local communities
• Appropriate local decision making could be replaced by bureaucratic paralysis
• Personal and professional autonomy could be reduced if school leaders become state servants directly employed by Hubs.

“These are very real worries shared by the Community Schools Alliance,” Mr Denham said.

“The chairman of the Tomorrow’s Schools Taskforce, Bali Haque, has consistently attacked critics of his Hub plan. It’s becoming more apparent now that these concerns are widely shared throughout the whole education sector.”

Like the NZEI, the Community Schools Alliance also agrees on the widely known problems in the education sector: lack of resourcing, inadequate support for teacher professional development and training, and lack of resourcing for disadvantaged students.

“The education sector is united in wanting to address these issues, to make our world class public school system even better,” Mr Denham said. “But handing over our community-led schools to new super-bureaucracies is not the way to do that.”

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