Charter school applicants put on notice

Potential charter school applicants have been put on notice that the legislation allowing for their creation will be repealed as soon as there is a change of government, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins says.

“Labour stands firmly opposed to the National Government’s agenda of carving up and privatising our excellent public education system. Anyone seeking to establish a charter school will be doing so in the knowledge that charter schools have no future under Labour.

“The schools don’t have to employ registered and qualified teachers, don’t have to teach to the curriculum and aren’t subject to the same accountabilities as state schools. That’s not good for education.

“There is already a lot of flexibility within the existing state system for schools to be innovative and do things differently. We don’t need an ideological experiment imported from countries that do worse than us in just about every reputable educational study.

“Public money should go towards supporting our world-leading public education system. Labour is utterly opposed to the National Government’s obsession with turning education into a profit-making opportunity for private businesses,” says Chris Hipkins.

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