SCHOOL FUNDING FIASCO FORECAST IF LABOUR WINS

Education Minister Nick Smith told the Association of Bulk Funded Schools conference in Taupo that funding for all schools would turn into a fiasco under Labour's policy to take away the choice of bulk funding for schools and replace it with a funding formula riddled with unfairness.

"Labour is determined to wreak havoc on 800 bulk funded schools and disrupt the education of over 280,000 pupils in the name of political ideology. These schools will face funding cuts of hundreds of thousands of dollars in their budgets and many teachers will be forced out of work. The worst aspect of Labour's policy is that school funding will become a bureaucratic nightmare."

Labour has announced, as part of their schools policy, that funding set aside for schools that take up bulk funding would be distributed to all schools. The approach would distort existing funding and create long term anomalies in school resourcing.

"Labour's policy will have two schools of the same decile rating and size receiving quite different funding. As the staffing of individual schools change, the anomalies will increase. You can make a central staffing system work or a bulk funding system work, but what Labour proposes is a mix of both within one school - the worst of both worlds. It will leave our public school system with a funding fiasco."

"Bulk Funding is shaping up as the crunch education issue this election. National is committed to schools having the choice to self manage, while Labour has done a deal with their teacher union friends to punish schools that have dared be innovative. Our school system cannot afford this retrograde step backwards."