Education Ministry prioritises costs over achievement

The Post reports:

New Zealand is not planning to build any new single-sex state schools, even as research suggests some students – especially girls in some settings – can do better in them.

The difference in outcomes is stark.

• UE rates for boys in boys-only schools was 48% and 28% in co-ed schools
• In low decile (1-4) boys’ schools 32% gained UE, versus 15% in co-ed
• For Maori in low decile schools, 22.7% gained UE, versus 7.6% in co-ed
• UE rates for girls in girls-only schools was 55% and 39% in co-ed

I would say the research does more than suggest some students do better.

That has disappointed principals at single-sex state schools, who say parents should have more choice.

Single-sex schools are not for everyone, but I believe any parent should have the choice (and be zoned) for both a co-ed school and a single sex school so they can choose what they think is best for their child.

For more than six decades, the state has continued to operate boys’ and girls’ schools where they already existed, but has not added new ones to the network.

Isn’t this astonishing? Look at the difference in achievement, and the last new single sex school was in 1961!

The Ministry of Education told the Sunday Star-Times it was not planning to build any more single-sex schools.

The Ministry said that was not about hostility to single-sex schooling, but about how it planned for a modern and sustainable network. …

But a 2021 Ministry briefing said “constructing a single co-ed campus is more cost effective than building more schools”.

Of course one large school is cheaper than two smaller schools, but this comes with a huge future cost of denying parents and children choice. If your aim is to let each child reach their potential, then you are failing.

Erica Stanford has been the most amazing education minister. But she would be even more amazing if she announced she was overturning the Ministry ban on single sex schools, and that in areas of high population growth, new schools will be both co-educational and single sex.

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