New Zealand government has decided to demolish the school decile system

The Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, announced on 24th September that the decile system for New Zealand schools would be replaced by a new Equity Index system in 2021 or 2022, to ensure a more even distribution of education resourcing.

The current school decile system has been used as a measure of the percentage of a school’s students who are from low socio-economic communities, by which the government will decide the amount of funding it will assign to public (state and state-integrated) schools. However, it turns out that the decile system deters the adequate education resourcing from being distributed to low decile schools, and it becomes a stigma for many low-decile schools as they are judged by decile rating rather than the achievement of their students.

ISEA accredited education agents point out that the majority of their international students prefer to study at decile 9 or 10 schools. Therefore, replacing the decile system would be an opportunity for those schools which have low decile ratings but high education performance to attract more international students.

Read more in the EducationHQ New Zealand report.

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