Submission calls for reforms to improve access to education

Fundamental education system reform is needed to get better outcomes at schools and more participation in tertiary education, the Education Forum has said in a submission to the Human Rights Commission (HRC).

The HRC was conducting a review into the Right to Education. It released its report earlier this month.

The Education Forum submission argued that New Zealand faced serious issues in terms of ensuring that all children had access to quality schooling and the opportunity to undertake further or higher education - irrespective of their socioeconomic background.

More government programmes and more add-ons could not, on their own, change the fundamental weaknesses in the system.

A comprehensive reform was required of the school sector and it should have three building blocks:

• expanding opportunity and choice for all families
• lifting the status of the teaching profession
• increasing schools accountability to families.

"In our view, the right to education is best advanced by adopting 'market-based' policies at the school and tertiary education levels.

"Good progress was being made during the late 1980s and 1990s under successive governments. Recent government policy has been going in the wrong direction and will limit the right to education for many, especially for those from lower socio-economic groups."

The Education Forum submission.

The HRC review to the Right to Education.