Associate Minister of Education David Seymour has today announced that round two of the charter school application process is open.
“Both new schools and state schools wanting to convert to charter school status will now be able to submit their expressions of interest to the Charter School Agency (CSA),” Mr Seymour says.
“Charter schools provide educators with greater autonomy and create diversity in New Zealand’s education system. They have been proven to raise overall educational achievement, especially for students who are underachieving or disengaged from the standard system.
“Round one of the application processes showed us that the demand for charter schools exceeded even my expectations. During the first round we saw the CSA receive 78 applications to open new charter schools, or to convert existing state schools to charter schools.
“Charter schools are here to stay. We have already seen the opening of seven diverse schools delivering to a range of communities. There are also more schools from the first round of charter schools who are currently in contract negotiations.
“The huge demand to open charter schools not only highlights the need, but also the commitment of people to provide varied educational opportunities for young New Zealanders to maximise educational outcomes. I hope to see many more new charter schools opening, and state and state-integrated schools converting to become charter schools.
“The good news for sponsors wanting to establish new charter schools is that we have updated estimates of the number of new schools that are affordable within the funding set aside by the Government.
“The actual cost of schools depends on a range of factors, including how quickly they are established, their property arrangement, whether they are primary or secondary schools and their roll size. After taking these factors into account, there is capacity to open more new charter schools than the 15 initially estimated. The exact number of schools will depend on the decisions made by the Authorisation Board.
“Charter schools will be given greater freedom to respond to diverse student needs in innovative ways, but they will be held to a much higher standard than state schools and subject to a high level of monitoring and accountability.
For more information, including how to apply, please visit here or here.
Image credit: Magda Ehlers
