PPTA MAKING DESPERATE CLAIMS

By releasing papers from nearly a decade ago, the PPTA has demonstrated that it is now desperate. It will cling to anything to attack the Government's success in finding a new and fair formula for funding schools that is now quite rapidly being taken up, Education Minister Wyatt Creech said today.

"The secondary teachers union has released papers from way back in 1991 to try to find a way to scare schools away from choosing the Fully Funded Option of Direct Resourcing (or "bulk funding" as they call it)," Mr Creech said.

"Even then the papers have been misread. The papers were prepared by officials in the State Services Commission - not the Education Ministry - for the 1991 Budget and the advice was not heeded by the Government at the time.

"New Zealand was in a very different fiscal situation at that time and even though we are currently facing a world economic downturn, we are much better placed to deal with it as a result of economic policy pursued over the decade." Mr Creech said.

"Not only that, since 1991 there has been a heap of changes, both educational and in terms of Government financial management, that make for a very different situation. There is the new Fully Funded Option formula that completely changes the way the staffing grant for schools is calculated. There is the Fiscal Responsibility Act which requires governments to share clearly their fiscal intentions. The future funding pathway is well documented. There are many more such changes," he said.

"As I have said before, schools must be allowed to make their decision about their funding options on their own, on educational merits, and without unreasonable pressures," he said.

"The Fully Funded Option of Direct Resourcing is about a fair way to fund self-managed schools - not about cutting educational costs - as suggested in the PPTA's interpretation of these archival papers. These people are desperate," he said.