Increased support for Alternative Education
Alternative Education (AE) caters for the needs of students aged 13 to 15 years. Students may come to AE for a number of different reasons. Negative experiences in school may have led some students to become habitual truants, while other students are deemed behaviourally challenging and are consequently excluded from school. AE aims to provide a constructive alternative delivery of education for these students, in a nurturing environment with high expectations of student potential.
There are currently 1,820 student places in AE. Community providers are contracted by schools to deliver an education to students, usually off site. Instruction is usually provided by a mix of registered teachers, tutors with other qualifications, and resources from Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (The Correspondence School).
This initiative provides a 7.2 per cent (or $1.5 million per annum) increase in support for Alternative Education through:
- A general increase of 2.92 per cent to AE funding from July 2011 in line with the increase to the operations grant for schools
- An increase of 68 places to meet changes in demographics
- A specialist professional development programme for alternative education tutors.