Friday, March 6, 2015
Since Sept 27, 1879
Retail $1.50 Home delivered from 95c
Property March 6, 2015
& LIFESTYLE
Industry Comment Market watch
P13
What's On
P15
Purple Stars Fundraiser
Open Homes
P16
Weekend open homes in the Ashburton district
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P2
What’s On
Entertaining you
Check out What’s On in your community on pages 14 and 15 * Community Events * Shows * Bands * Restaurants * Ballet
THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Open homes, What’s on
Tinwald bonds broken
INSIDE
P6
ASHBURTON
www.guardianonline.co.nz
Big plans to light up Methven
FULL STORY
P5
Special ed ‘underfunded’ BY DAISY HUDSON
DAISY.H@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
Children with special needs could be disadvantaged because of a shortfall in school funding, a Mid Canterbury principal says. The Education Review Office released a new report yesterday that examined how well students with special education needs are included in New Zealand schools. The evaluation covered 152 schools, which were reviewed in Term 2 last year.
The findings of the report were largely positive, with 78 per cent of schools found to be mostly inclusive. Just 1 per cent of schools had few inclusive practices, down from 20 per cent in ERO’s last report in 2010. Minister of Education Hekia Parata has welcomed the report, saying schools could be proud of the progress they had made. However, while the report shows gains have been made in the area, it also found that twothirds of the schools reviewed
considered issues related to funding as a “major challenge”. Mid Canterbury Principals’ Association president Chris Murphy told the Guardian yesterday he believes special education is seriously underfunded in New Zealand. Mr Murphy said on the whole, Mid Canterbury schools were very inclusive. “I think that all Mid Canterbury schools are of the belief that children with special needs should have equal opportunities and should have equal access to
state schooling and state education,” he said. However, he felt that students with special education needs could be disadvantaged by a lack of funding for schools. “I think principals in general feel that special needs is very poorly funded,” he said. “Schools are not financially supported enough to support these students enough to achieve their potential.” Other challenges reported to ERO by schools included a lack of support and timely responses
from specialist services and the ministry and the availability of appropriate professional learning and development (PLD). Mr Murphy said because there was such a broad spectrum of special needs, it was hard to target PLD to a school’s specific needs. However, he did say access was getting better.
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