Miseducation under the National Party

That Hollow Brain of the National Party, Steven Joyce, has been working overtime to destroy public education in NZ so that the Private Education industry can be better off and ain't the proof in the pudding? Less childcare for those at the bottom and NZ Universities will no longer cater to NZers with overseas students pushing locals out.

Families struggle with fee increases
Niki Alefosio isn't angry about government funding cuts to her children's Porirua childcare centre – she's too busy calculating how to find the extra $100 she'll need to keep sending them there. First Five Inc, where her sons Riley, 4, and Darius, 1, spend up to 40 hours a week, is one of the many early childhood education providers looking at raising fees to cover the money it is about to lose.

Concerns Kiwis will be shut out of uni
The Government wants thousands more international students filling schools and tertiary institutions, as the doors shut for many Kiwis wanting to attend university. Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says the move will be an economic lifeline for universities. But the Government has been branded a "cheapskate" for relying on overseas money to prop up the tertiary sector. It comes as financially stressed universities cut more students with flagging grades and clamp down on new enrolments, with thousands of spaces for Kiwi students being lost this year alone.

Parents using childcare 'worse off'
Parents of children in early childhood education will be out of pocket despite Prime Minister John Key's assurance that no-one will be "worse off" after receiving tax cuts. The Government is being accused of breaking an election promise and parents fear extra fees will prevent some from sending young children to childcare. One Porirua childcare centre has already warned parents they face $50 a week more in fees after the Government axed the top subsidy for the 20 hours early childhood education scheme in its annual Budget.

If NZ had kept the top tax of 38cents and had raised the threshold to $100 000, that would have netted $450 million, more than enough to cover early childcare and eleviate the pressure on Universities, but our wise and medicated PM who glides through life in his $50 million bubble world decided instead of education, the wealthy should be able to live like Scrooge McDuck diving into a pool of money in a house made of gold (for Christ's sake though don't sound envious or else our rich overlords will flee overseas to Australia where the top tax rate is 45cents or the UK where the top tax rate is 50cents)).

The right wing privatization of education agenda grinds on. All the money for National Standards is for measuring, there is no extra money to support your child if they are measured to be failing. The National Standards have nothing to do with raising the educational standards of children , it is to implement a league table which lo and behold under this new proposal would be the false injection of competition the right wing want to promote that allows the education vouchers to provide money to the private education industry.

The disgusting farce is that this is all being sold as 'choice'. It is an attack on the public education system of NZ, picking up where National left off after they were kicked out of Government in 1999 and it is aimed at benefiting National and ACTs mates in the private education industry.