Speaker 1: Kiota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. As
Speaker 1: Auckland's population continues to grow, so too are the city's schools,
Speaker 1: and many of them are running out of space. Analysis
Speaker 1: by the Herald has found that while the school aged
Speaker 1: population has only risen by eighteen percent since the year
Speaker 1: two thousand, at least one school has had its role
Speaker 1: jump by one hundred and forty nine percent. With space
Speaker 1: running out, it's also prompting tough questions for schools and
Speaker 1: what they do with out of zone enrollments. Today on
Speaker 1: the Front Page ends at Herald, reporter Ben Lay joins
Speaker 1: us to digest the data he's seen about the shortage
Speaker 1: of space in our schools. Ben, how much growth have
Speaker 1: we seen in some of our biggest schools?
Speaker 2: Yeah, hi, Chelse, So some of the biggest schools in
Speaker 2: Auckland are reporting incredible growth. Really, there's some like Western
Speaker 2: Springs College that has grown two hundred percent and a
Speaker 2: story we had in the Herald recently focused on Mount
Speaker 2: Albert Grammar and it's had one hundred and forty nine
Speaker 2: percent growth. Although it should be mentioned that with Western
Speaker 2: Springs College, they did get new facilities built and that
Speaker 2: was part of the reason why they expanded. And with
Speaker 2: Mount Albert Grammer it did turn co educational, welcomed a
Speaker 2: lot of girls in in the during the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: I think, so that's partly why there's been growth. But
Speaker 2: across the city there's also been quite significant growth. So
Speaker 2: there's about seventy eight thousand more students in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four than there was in the year two thousand and
Speaker 2: across the city we've got about three hundred thousand pupils.
Speaker 1: What do we put that down to. I guess you've
Speaker 1: spoken to principals and teachers alike. What are they saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely immigration, So in particular in the past year
Speaker 2: we had record immigrations, so a big jump happened in
Speaker 2: the last year. And then a lot of schools, because
Speaker 2: particularly public schools, have to accept students that are within
Speaker 2: their zone, So some schools cover areas where there's been
Speaker 2: a lot more housing development, and when that happens inside
Speaker 2: your zone, you can see a big spike in the
Speaker 2: number of students coming to your school.
Speaker 1: Is there a big difference between how many enrollments are
Speaker 1: happening at public schools versus integrated and private schools.
Speaker 2: There has been an increase in people choosing private schools,
Speaker 2: but it should be mentioned that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: students in Auckland go to public schools. So we've got
Speaker 2: about two hundred and forty nine thousand students enrolled in
Speaker 2: public schools, about thirty one thousand in Catholic and integrated schools,
Speaker 2: and about twenty thousand in private schools. But we have
Speaker 2: seen an increase in private school so there's been about
Speaker 2: an eighty four percent growth in private schools and around
Speaker 2: thirty percent growth in students enrolling in public schools.
Speaker 3: Some areas that traditionally haven't been taught in, like our
Speaker 3: library and our cafe, have now got classes in them.
Speaker 3: Basically every space in the school's got students in it
Speaker 3: all the time. We've got more teachers than we've got
Speaker 3: car parks already and it's going to increase next year
Speaker 3: as well. And the other impact is on the infrastructure
Speaker 3: of the building itself. So when you've got a building
Speaker 3: that's designed to have a capacity of tiep hundred students
Speaker 3: and you've got fourteen hundred students in there, the water
Speaker 3: pressure drops because of the amount of flushing that goes on.
Speaker 1: For example, looking at Mount Albert Grammar as an example,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that before that was the fifteenth biggest school
Speaker 1: in Auckland in two thousand and by twenty eleven it
Speaker 1: was its second biggest. What sort of impact does this
Speaker 1: massive growth have on the school's facilities.
Speaker 2: I believe it would affect pretty much every aspect of
Speaker 2: the school really, So obviously they will be straining to
Speaker 2: find enough classrooms to teach students, then you know, sports
Speaker 2: facilities and things like that. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that they emphasized is actually the sort of leadership of
Speaker 2: that because they're going into territory that hardly any if
Speaker 2: any other schools really across the country are going into.
Speaker 2: So they're built like normal schools, but they've got sort
Speaker 2: of a larger leadership and management challenge than other schools.
Speaker 2: So you know, for instance, they went to Brisbane recently
Speaker 2: in Australia to see how they were managing their own
Speaker 2: large roles and increases in students, and that's something that
Speaker 2: the schools organize themselves. So they're hoping that they'll get
Speaker 2: more support in that type of area as well.
Speaker 1: We might think the solution to this is just to
Speaker 1: start building new schools. But I read an interesting part
Speaker 1: of your story on the cost factor of building a
Speaker 1: new school over expanding an existing one. What have you heard?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Patrick Drum, the headmaster of Mount Albert Grammer, mentioned
Speaker 2: that his school did get new classrooms in May. So
Speaker 2: that was a thirty million dollar facility with twenty two
Speaker 2: classrooms and it can accommodate six hundred students now at
Speaker 2: a cost of twenty two million. He compared that to
Speaker 2: if you had to build a new school from scratch,
Speaker 2: where you'd have to build all the other facilities needed
Speaker 2: for six hundred students, not just the classrooms, and he
Speaker 2: sort of did just the back of the envelope estimate
Speaker 2: that that would be a quarter of a billion dollars.
Speaker 2: And that means that if you're a government or looking
Speaker 2: about how you help address this issue of rising student numbers,
Speaker 2: what do you do? Do you add more classrooms to
Speaker 2: existing schools or do you build new schools, which, particularly
Speaker 2: in Inner Auckland, where there's not much space for a
Speaker 2: new school, it can be very expensive operations. So Patrick
Speaker 2: is expecting that existing schools will likely keep getting bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger, just from the economics of the situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it just means we'll just keep consolidating a
Speaker 1: lot of our students to existing schools rather than spreading
Speaker 1: things out I suppose. And the space factor as well.
Speaker 2: Ben, You try buying a new house in the inner
Speaker 2: Auckland and then think about how much bigger you need
Speaker 2: for a school ground. So it would be a challenge
Speaker 2: to start building new schools in the inner city.
Speaker 1: Ben. This issue with ballooning roles also means that schools
Speaker 1: aren't accepting as many out of zone students anymore. Firstly,
Speaker 1: what do you know about school zones? The schools required
Speaker 1: to accept any student who lives in their zone or
Speaker 1: I guess I mean it seems archaic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of an Auckland sort of tradition,
Speaker 2: isn't It's this mass flight of students across the city
Speaker 2: on public transport every morning, coming from sort of all
Speaker 2: corners to go to the schools that their parents or
Speaker 2: the students want to go to. But that is coming
Speaker 2: under threat. Schools, particularly schools that are better known, often
Speaker 2: in the inner city or the north Shore, just having
Speaker 2: trouble meeting the roles of students within their zone. Typically
Speaker 2: it works by they all accept students who already have
Speaker 2: another sibling in that school first, or maybe a parent
Speaker 2: went to that school. They work through a list of priorities,
Speaker 2: and then once they get through the priorities, they have
Speaker 2: an open ballot for anyone who wants to try and apply.
Speaker 2: In a lot of cases this year, they're just on
Speaker 2: the priority list, they're not even getting to the open ballot.
Speaker 2: And in the case of Mount Alber Grammar, they're under
Speaker 2: such strain with student numbers that they're not expecting to
Speaker 2: open up to out of his own students next year.
Speaker 1: So which schools have the biggest waiting lists for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five?
Speaker 2: So we did a survey of a handful of schools,
Speaker 2: So we don't know which schools exactly have the biggest
Speaker 2: waiting lists, but Mount Albert Grammar, among the schools we
Speaker 2: did talk to, has the biggest, with six hundred and
Speaker 2: forty five students on its waiting list at the time
Speaker 2: we spoke to them. Auckland Grammar had close to five hundred,
Speaker 2: Westlake Boys High School had four hundred and forty Westlake
Speaker 2: Girls two twenty nine, and a bunch of other schools
Speaker 2: had big waiting lists as well.
Speaker 1: So, like you said, some are looking at base not
Speaker 1: letting any out of zone enrollments in for at least
Speaker 1: until twenty twenty six, Is that right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, so they have gone through the process of
Speaker 2: accepting students for twenty twenty five. So Mount Albert Gramma
Speaker 2: did take out of zone students for twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: but it's looking ahead for the students that want to
Speaker 2: come in in twenty twenty six that they're unlikely to
Speaker 2: take out of z own students. Other schools haven't said
Speaker 2: exactly what they're going to do by twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: but we just know that they're under pressure, and in
Speaker 2: this case, like Auckland Grammar was saying, they were still
Speaker 2: just at the very beginning of their priority lists when
Speaker 2: they had to sort of shut off the number of
Speaker 2: students that they'd accepted by the time we spoke to them.
Speaker 4: By the end of this year, the Ministry expects to
Speaker 4: add sixty one new enrollment schemes to manage overcrowding and
Speaker 4: ensure students can attend schools in the area. It takes
Speaker 4: the total to one thousand, two hundred and eighty two
Speaker 4: schemes affecting slightly more than half the schools in the country.
Speaker 3: Ideally, it is a sort of school that you feel
Speaker 3: would be a good set to your kids, to your child,
Speaker 3: it would be really good if they could go to
Speaker 3: that school, and at the moment you don't necessarily have
Speaker 3: that option.
Speaker 1: What sort of impact is this having on families trying
Speaker 1: to get into these schools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I spoke to a number of mothers who were
Speaker 2: they had become passionate about this issue. This is what
Speaker 2: they were thinking about, like constantly, even struggling to sleep sometimes,
Speaker 2: they were saying, So they're examining, they're like looking into
Speaker 2: what they can do to get their kids into schools
Speaker 2: right across the city, and sometimes they're going in the
Speaker 2: ballot of multiple schools and just hoping. So some of
Speaker 2: them are having to really rethink what they're doing. You know,
Speaker 2: they're really having to think, we do I actually have
Speaker 2: to move into the zone. And some cases, you know,
Speaker 2: not only is moving in the zone expensive and not
Speaker 2: everyone can do that, but even when it's possible, some
Speaker 2: people live in other parts of the city for reasons,
Speaker 2: you know, they're close to family that can help out
Speaker 2: with child care issues like that. So for those mums
Speaker 2: who do want to get into these schools, it's a
Speaker 2: really big.
Speaker 1: Issue for them. I remember when I was applying for
Speaker 1: high school, and I don't want to say what year was, Ben,
Speaker 1: but I remember that the school nearest to me was
Speaker 1: a Catholic school, and there was a chance that I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get in, and it seemed like the
Speaker 1: end of the world at that point. I remember my
Speaker 1: father having to write a letter saying that his side
Speaker 1: of the family was Catholic and all this stuff. Do
Speaker 1: you have a similar experience.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a pagan like you, I guess no. Actually,
Speaker 2: I was in a small town, so it was not
Speaker 2: so hard to go into a Catholic school. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: if you could pay the fee, they went under the
Speaker 2: role pressure in my little town growing up, Ben.
Speaker 1: Isn't there an argument to be made that all schools
Speaker 1: should just be of the same quality and parents shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel obliged to move to a different suburb just to
Speaker 1: get their kid into one particular school.
Speaker 2: Certainly, probably anyone you talk to would believe that should
Speaker 2: be the case. Right Anyone living across the city, you
Speaker 2: would hope would have the confidence in their local school
Speaker 2: to enroll in their school. Why that doesn't happen is
Speaker 2: something that would be debated. So in some cases, parents
Speaker 2: may just really love another school on the other side
Speaker 2: of the city, so they're doing it because they went
Speaker 2: there or that's what they want for their child, right
Speaker 2: It might not be a reflection on the school in
Speaker 2: their zone. In other cases, some schools may not perform
Speaker 2: as well as perhaps some of the better known schools.
Speaker 2: Other reasons kids might go to some of the better
Speaker 2: known schools is they might think that they're going to
Speaker 2: have different types of contacts that they can keep through
Speaker 2: their lives as adults. So there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: things going in not necessarily all reflecting quality, but getting
Speaker 2: all schools up to an equally high standard would obviously
Speaker 2: alleviate this issue. Thanks for joining us, Ben.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page
Speaker 1: is produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts and tune in tomorrow
Speaker 1: for another look behind the headlines.