The money promised to provide ‘wider access’ to private schooling is ridiculous!  For a start, the means tested eligibility means the applicants must be earning less than $65k gross per annum AND have a net worth of less than $150k!  So conceivably, someone who is doing well enough (thank you) can apply for this grant to pay for private schooling for their kids!  What is more, the selection process is by ballot – a clear indication that selection is not based on highest need (which, is obviously not the intent).  Therefore I have to draw the conclusion that this scheme is not targeted at the ‘lower income bracket’ at all… my thoughts here are; if you want to send your kids to private school, YOU pay for it.

The money being poured into private education is crazy.  This money should be used to support the public sector, in particular focusing on areas of highest need  and for me, this means supporting learning lower decile schools… these are where the ‘truly’ low income families have to send their kids.  How often do the ‘truly ‘ poor get access to private health care?  (I don’t actually know but suggest that it would not be much, if anything).

The direct correlation between poverty and educational underachievement cannot be ignored, and certainly cannot be resolved by pumping another $2.6m into private schooling (not withstanding the other $50m going into private schooling over the next 3 years).

Time to acknowledge the wonderful work being done by many of our lower decile schools and to work with them to provide the resourcing to help them (and therefore all schools) lift under-achievement among our poorest.

I read with a great deal of concern two new outcomes from recent news reporting on issues to do with national interest.  The first is to do with international ratings agency Fitch, saying it was worried about New Zealand’s high debt levels and reliance on overseas borrowing… frightening enough (whose footsteps are we following in here?)  However, I won’t go into this in detail – there is another media ‘bone’ I will briefly address.

The second pressing issue ‘bone’ that our media dog is onto, is that our fit and outdoorsy national identity has gone out the window with the revelation that we are now the 3rd fattest nation in the world (only Mexico and the US are ahead of us).  I am unsure of the accuracy of the study or the point in placing a hierarchical order to it… as if winning something like that is something to be proud of.  This does however raise some very interesting discussions for our Nation.

As per previous interventions, such as the ‘anti-smacking’ bill, we seem to have governments who place legislative measures on the nation rather than dealing with the actual problem.  Another popular measure are those endless multi-million dollar ‘hard-hitting’ advertising campaigns, where the only outcomes involve advertising agencies becoming better off than the rest of the nation… not fewer kids being hit, fewer people dying of smoking related illness, OR fewer people dying at the hands of speeding, and/or drunk drivers!

I firmly believe that to sort out the issue of obesity, we do not place further sanctions on Schools, remove the right for junk food retailers to advertise or any other archaic attempt to change the ingrained habits of poor diet, poor lifestyle and poor parenting.  All such attempts will serve to strike at the branches of the problem, not the roots!  Find the problem and deal with the problem, whatever that may be… and if there is a causal factor which is parental, genetic, ethnic or gender related… deal with that, and don’t waste our time on changing the laws for everybody!

Hopefully that may mean we can save up some money in the national coffers too!  Now, anyone for some folate in their bread?