A study showing that students at private schools are twice as likely to get a degree than students at public schools is solid evidence for targeted help for students from low-income families, ISNZ says.

ISNZ executive director Joy Quigley said the study from the U.S National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released earlier this year, was proof of independent schools’ success in getting good results for low-income families.

It backed her call for the reintroduction of the Targeted Individual Entitlement (TIE) scheme to get children from low-income families into private schools to help them "beat the poverty trap".

The data from the NCES annual analysis of education revealed that the success of students from the lowest quartile of poverty at private schools was even higher: they were nearly four times more likely to get a higher education degree than comparable students from public schools.

"Every child is different and independent schools have proven that they do work in the best interests of the child. Programmes like the TIE scheme … should be given a big tick," Ms Quigley said.

She said the success of the TIE scheme was clearly evident in each piece of research conducted on it for the Ministry of Education after the scheme was started in 1996.

"Unfortunately new placements were canned by the Labour Government in 2000. But, even today, we still get calls into the ISNZ office asking for application forms.

"By far the majority of the parents, children and schools participating in the scheme overwhelmingly endorsed students having greater choice in the school they attended," Ms Quigley said.

"It's what happens in the pre-school and tertiary sectors. Why should choice be denied to families in the compulsory sector?

"For many reasons not every child fits well into their local school. TIE gave children from low-income families — those on less than $25,000 per year — the opportunity to seek out a school that best suited their particular talents or learning style, be they gifted or struggling academically."

The NCES website is at: http://nces.ed.gov/