The Education Ministry has started consultation on a shake-up of enrolment schemes covering more than 8300 children at 10 schools in Mount Maunganui and Papamoa.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
The changes are being made to make room for an 11th school opening in Papamoa next year and because one of the area's secondary schools, Mount Maunganui College, is establishing an enrolment zone.
The Tauranga region has been one of the fastest-growing in the country and many schools have struggled with overcrowding in recent years.
Education Ministry documents showed Papamoa, which occupies a strip of coastal land east of Tauranga, was forecast in 2019 to gain a further 1000 students by 2030.
Mount Maunganui College principal Alastair Sinton said the school had about 1800 students and had been growing at a rate of 100 students a year for several years.
He said that was too fast.
"We could certainly see things coming to a crunch point. We're not there yet, but the growth can't really go unchecked. There's only so many buildings you can have in a school and there's only so many buildings the ministry can replace or add to your site within a certain timeframe as well," he said.
The Papamoa/Mount Maunganui changes were among the first to be made since law changes last year gave the Education Ministry direct control of and responsibility for establishing and making changes to schools' enrolment schemes.
Sinton said it seemed to be a good way of doing things.
"My feeling at this point is that it is quite helpful. The board and I, we have a school to run. Going through the consultation process for an enrolment scheme takes up quite a lot of time and energy, particularly if you are running that or driving that yourself. So having that pressure taken off us by the ministry, at this stage, seems like a positive step for us," he said.
He said the proposed enrolment schemes changes would make little difference for most people living in the area, but for some it could be significant.
The Education Ministry said its job was to ensure every child had access to their local school.
It said census data showed Tauranga grew by 19 percent between 2013 and 2018, well above the national average of just over 10 percent, and most of the city's growth happened in Papamoa because it was one of the only available areas for residential development.
