Call for sacrifices for schooling

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 6

Call for sacrifices for schooling

PA Auckland Poor parents who cannot afford private schools should cut down smoking and drinking or rely on funds from relatives, says a visiting Canadian education professor. Private schools were popular with all income groups overseas and parents with low incomes were prepared to make sacrifices for their children’s education, said Professor Edwin West. Professor West, who teaches at Ottawa’s Carleton University, is in New Zealand under the auspices of the New Zealand Centre for Independent Studies.

He conceded that poorer students were proportionately under-represented in private schools. Among the reasons cited by parents for preferring private schools were their lack of drugs, emphasis on basics, better discipline and smaller class sizes. An increase in private schools would give parents more choice, Professor West said. He was unhappy with the New Zealand Government’s power under the School Trustees Act to take control of a school if its board did not act properly. “It is still Government control, and a Government system as a whole is inefficient,” he said.