The proportion of lower socio-economic students taking up tertiary education appears to be falling fast according to information just released from the Tertiary Education Commission, which is likely to exacerbate inequality. The Herald’s Derek Cheng reports that statistics for the Ministry of Education’s deciles of school areas – a basic proxy for wealth in education – show that “students from deciles 1-5 made up 38 per cent of first-year tertiary students in 2017. This fell to just 26 per cent in 2022, while those from the top five deciles made up nearly three in every four fees-free students” – see: Revealed: Ever-vanishing take-up of tertiary fees-free among those from poorer backgrounds (paywalled).
Cheng says that students from the richest decile schools are going to universities and tertiary institutes in ever larger numbers: “The biggest leap in participation has been for decile 10 students, whose share of first-year tertiary students went from 11 per cent in 2017 to 16 per cent in 2022 — a 43 per cent increase.”
Unfortunately, this has occurred at the same time that the last Labour Government brought in its fees-free policy for first-year students. Cheng says: “instead of reducing inequity, the policy appears to have exacerbated it.”
Primary and secondary schools are in for a huge shakeup under the new government’s “partnership school” reforms. Writing in the Herald today, Matthew Hooton says the reforms will be the coalition’s “most important reforms in 2024”, bigger than changes concerning “tax, housing, resource management or even race relations” – see: Why education reforms will be the most important change this government makes (paywalled).
Hooton explains that the new “partnership schools” will be different to both state and private schools: “The objective is for new schools to open and others to expand offering different approaches to education. Some will be motivated by various cultural traditions, like Anglican, Catholic, Te ao Māori and Pasifika schools. Others will be committed to different educational philosophies, like Montessori, Steiner, Reggio Emilia, or a traditional grammar school education. Most will be run by not-for-profit trusts. Others will be for-profit operations, focused on delivering whatever local parents want, like the existing ACG schools. Unlike private schools, partnership schools will be free. They won’t have to follow the state-mandated curriculum, including rules about how many minutes a day must be spent on each subject.”
According to Hooton, such changes to the education system are the most likely to fix the country’s severe economic and productivity problems. He laments that other methods that successive governments have relied on – such as relying on immigration and a booming housing market – have helped lead to the current situation. He laments that this will continue under the new government: “National is under pressure to keep the doors open from some of its wideboy property developer donors, to help them sell cheap micro-apartments.”
The lack of private and state homes to rent is still causing homelessness for families and individuals, and creating a big bill for the taxpayer. Today Federico Magrin reports in Stuff that this year’s budget for paying for motels and other emergency housing will be about $340m – see: Our $300m a year emergency housing situation.
According to figures from MSD, In the five years from 2018 to 2022 they have spent $1.48bn on emergency housing grants, with the amounts peaking in 2022. According to the article, some motels have received millions of dollars: the “Anglesea Motel & Conference Centre in Hamilton and Mcentral Apartments Manukau, have received $26.19m and $25.68m respectively”. In Auckland alone there are about 2466 people in emergency housing, most of whom are children.
As the new government moves to integrate New Zealand more into the Five Eyes Western military alliance, some leading international relations analysts are warning that the price will be very high. Geoffrey Miller of the Democracy Project has been quoted in the South China Morning Post that Canberra, Washington and London will be currently determining “just what the price of admission will be for Wellington to join the West’s elite new club”, and especially the price for joining Aukus, which the new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have been positive about – see New Zealand mulls joining Aukus, but will it be retreat ‘towards the Anglosphere’?
According to this new report, Miller believes New Zealand “is moving rapidly to align itself more closely with Australia’s more hawkish and security-driven view of the Indo-Pacific”, and he says that this shift is “a big change from the previous Labour government led by Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins, which often seemed to play for time on the big issues”.
But Miller also warns that the new trajectory in favour of Aukus will put the country’s 40-year independent foreign policy “on life support”, and New Zealand “would have to expect repercussions and fallout from its biggest trading partner and the unstated target of Aukus, China”.
Similarly, the article reports that the University of Otago’s Robert Patman warns about the “retreat towards the Anglosphere”, but suggests that there are divisions between Christopher Luxon who wants to protect relations with the country’s biggest trading partner, and Peters who takes a “more robust approach” towards China.
The Government’s long-delayed attention towards improving relations with India appears to be bearing fruit. Today BusinessDesk’s Paul McBeth reports that “India’s union cabinet chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi has approved a proposal to open a consulate general of India in Auckland” – see: India to open consulate general in Auckland (paywalled).
He reports the India Government promising it will open within the next 12 months: “Opening of a consulate general of India in Auckland would help in increasing India’s diplomatic footprint and strengthen India’s diplomatic representation in view of India’s increasing global engagement”.
But there’s another rising Asian economic superpower that should also be on the Government’s radar – see Dileepa Fonseka’s Why NZ shouldn't forget Vietnam (paywalled).
Finally, tomorrow we will see who has been awarded the latest New Year honours – and see how these are decided, and how you can nominate someone, read Anna Murray’s How does someone get on the NZ honours list?
NZ Politics Daily - 29 December 2023
PARLIAMENT
Tova O’Brien (Stuff): Debates, protest, maneouvres outmaneouvred, a resignation and peak Peters - biggest plays of 2023
Brent Edwards (NBR): Political bombshell and the winners and losers of the year
RNZ: This year's big stories point to next year's debates
Vaughan Bidois (Whakaata Māori): The symbolic violence of using English first or removing Māori names
Metiria Stanton Turei (ODT): Let’s be confident, embrace our bicultural identity next year (paywalled)
ODT Editorial: Chaos? Not so far for coalition govt (paywalled)
Brent Edwards (NBR): Former Act MP returns to his first love: business (paywalled)
Paid subscribers can access the full NZ Politics Daily from here. The following categories of news and analysis continue: MEDIA; EDUCATION; LEGAL PROFESSION, JUSTICE; HOUSING; FOREIGN AFFAIRS; EMPLOYMENT, BUSINESS