Surprise Allocations for Learning Support say Principals
Today’s announcement of the allocation of 600 Learning Support Coordinator positions has been met with surprise by the
New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF).
‘We understood that this first tranche of positions would be allocated fairly and evenly across the board,’ said Whetu
Cormick, NZPF President. ‘What is surprising is that there is a bias towards allocating LSCs to established Kahui Ako,
or Communities of Learning.’
The Learning Support Coordinators are in response to the call for additional support to cope with the growing level of
severely behaviourally and cognitively challenged young people entering schools.
Special Education has been a broken system for a very long time.
‘Today we had hoped to see LSCs allocated to schools with the greatest number of students with severe learning and
behavioural challenges. I question the Ministry's announcement that schools have been selected on their advanced use of
the new Learning Support Model as we do not believe that this is the case,’ said Cormick.
‘We look forward to the next tranche of LSCs being announced very soon,’ he said, ‘so that a much broader range of
schools can benefit from this investment.’
ENDS