Source: Radio New Zealand
Associate Education Minister David Seymour initially told reporters on Thursday the trust did exist RNZ / Mark Papalii
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says contracting a non-existent trust to set up a charter school was “a bit of a screw up”.
But he said the sport-focused charter school would still go ahead.
The Charter School Agency signed a contract for the NZ Performance Academy Aoteaora with the NZPAA Charitable Trust, but the trust was not listed on the Charities Register.
The agency has been unable to clarify for RNZ the legal status of the contract.
Seymour initially told reporters on Thursday the trust did exist, but his office later clarified he meant the school’s sponsor existed.
He said the sponsor changed some of its arrangements, but the name of the sponsor was not changed on the contract.
“On the contract they still had the old name. So obviously, bit of a screw-up administratively but fundamentally the people are there, the students are there, the government’s there and that partnership will continue,” he said.
“There’s not actually a problem to be addressed here. The school’s going to be there, the students are going to be there. Everyone’s very excited about it and the administrative error can be easily fixed.”
Seymour said he had confidence in the agency’s processes.
“I do, because one administrative error when they’ve opened nearly 18 schools at record speed, I think is pretty good.”
He said the agency was not rushing to approve schools before next year’s election.
“I don’t think they’re being rushed for that purpose. I think they’ve been overwhelmed with interest. They’ve had over 100 different organisations that want to run charter schools. They’ve got to assess them all, contract the ones that we can afford to to open right now, and then monitor how they perform,” he said.
“There’s a huge amount of interest in charter schools, which has put pressure, but generally I’m pretty pleased with the way the charter school agency’s responded to that pressure.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
