Kiota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. As Auckland's population continues to grow, so too are the city's schools, and many of them are running out of space. Analysis by the Herald has found that while the school aged population has only risen by eighteen percent since the year two thousand, at least one school has had its role
jump by one hundred and forty nine percent. With space running out, it's also prompting tough questions for schools and what they do with out of zone enrollments. Today on the Front Page ends at Herald, reporter Ben Lay joins us to digest the data he's seen about the shortage of space in our schools. Ben, how much growth have we seen in some of our biggest schools?
Yeah, hi, Chelse, So some of the biggest schools in Auckland are reporting incredible growth. Really, there's some like Western Springs College that has grown two hundred percent and a story we had in the Herald recently focused on Mount Albert Grammar and it's had one hundred and forty nine percent growth. Although it should be mentioned that with Western Springs College, they did get new facilities built and that
was part of the reason why they expanded. And with Mount Albert Grammer it did turn co educational, welcomed a lot of girls in in the during the early two thousands, I think, so that's partly why there's been growth. But across the city there's also been quite significant growth. So there's about seventy eight thousand more students in twenty twenty four than there was in the year two thousand and across the city we've got about three hundred thousand pupils.
What do we put that down to. I guess you've spoken to principals and teachers alike. What are they saying.
Yeah, definitely immigration, So in particular in the past year we had record immigrations, so a big jump happened in the last year. And then a lot of schools, because particularly public schools, have to accept students that are within their zone, So some schools cover areas where there's been a lot more housing development, and when that happens inside your zone, you can see a big spike in the number of students coming to your school.
Is there a big difference between how many enrollments are happening at public schools versus integrated and private schools.
There has been an increase in people choosing private schools, but it should be mentioned that the vast majority of students in Auckland go to public schools. So we've got about two hundred and forty nine thousand students enrolled in public schools, about thirty one thousand in Catholic and integrated schools,
and about twenty thousand in private schools. But we have seen an increase in private school so there's been about an eighty four percent growth in private schools and around thirty percent growth in students enrolling in public schools.
Some areas that traditionally haven't been taught in, like our library and our cafe, have now got classes in them. Basically every space in the school's got students in it all the time. We've got more teachers than we've got car parks already and it's going to increase next year as well. And the other impact is on the infrastructure
of the building itself. So when you've got a building that's designed to have a capacity of tiep hundred students and you've got fourteen hundred students in there, the water pressure drops because of the amount of flushing that goes on.
For example, looking at Mount Albert Grammar as an example, you mentioned that before that was the fifteenth biggest school in Auckland in two thousand and by twenty eleven it was its second biggest. What sort of impact does this massive growth have on the school's facilities.
I believe it would affect pretty much every aspect of the school really, So obviously they will be straining to find enough classrooms to teach students, then you know, sports facilities and things like that. But one of the things that they emphasized is actually the sort of leadership of that because they're going into territory that hardly any if any other schools really across the country are going into.
So they're built like normal schools, but they've got sort of a larger leadership and management challenge than other schools. So you know, for instance, they went to Brisbane recently in Australia to see how they were managing their own large roles and increases in students, and that's something that the schools organize themselves. So they're hoping that they'll get more support in that type of area as well.
We might think the solution to this is just to start building new schools. But I read an interesting part of your story on the cost factor of building a new school over expanding an existing one. What have you heard?
Yeah, Patrick Drum, the headmaster of Mount Albert Grammer, mentioned that his school did get new classrooms in May. So that was a thirty million dollar facility with twenty two classrooms and it can accommodate six hundred students now at
a cost of twenty two million. He compared that to if you had to build a new school from scratch, where you'd have to build all the other facilities needed for six hundred students, not just the classrooms, and he sort of did just the back of the envelope estimate that that would be a quarter of a billion dollars. And that means that if you're a government or looking about how you help address this issue of rising student numbers,
what do you do? Do you add more classrooms to existing schools or do you build new schools, which, particularly in Inner Auckland, where there's not much space for a new school, it can be very expensive operations. So Patrick is expecting that existing schools will likely keep getting bigger and bigger, just from the economics of the situation.
Yeah, so it just means we'll just keep consolidating a lot of our students to existing schools rather than spreading things out I suppose. And the space factor as well.
Ben, You try buying a new house in the inner Auckland and then think about how much bigger you need for a school ground. So it would be a challenge to start building new schools in the inner city.
Ben. This issue with ballooning roles also means that schools aren't accepting as many out of zone students anymore. Firstly, what do you know about school zones? The schools required to accept any student who lives in their zone or I guess I mean it seems archaic.
Yeah, it's a bit of an Auckland sort of tradition, isn't It's this mass flight of students across the city on public transport every morning, coming from sort of all corners to go to the schools that their parents or the students want to go to. But that is coming under threat. Schools, particularly schools that are better known, often in the inner city or the north Shore, just having
trouble meeting the roles of students within their zone. Typically it works by they all accept students who already have another sibling in that school first, or maybe a parent went to that school. They work through a list of priorities, and then once they get through the priorities, they have an open ballot for anyone who wants to try and apply. In a lot of cases this year, they're just on the priority list, they're not even getting to the open ballot.
And in the case of Mount Alber Grammar, they're under such strain with student numbers that they're not expecting to open up to out of his own students next year.
So which schools have the biggest waiting lists for twenty twenty five?
So we did a survey of a handful of schools, So we don't know which schools exactly have the biggest waiting lists, but Mount Albert Grammar, among the schools we did talk to, has the biggest, with six hundred and forty five students on its waiting list at the time we spoke to them. Auckland Grammar had close to five hundred, Westlake Boys High School had four hundred and forty Westlake Girls two twenty nine, and a bunch of other schools had big waiting lists as well.
So, like you said, some are looking at base not letting any out of zone enrollments in for at least until twenty twenty six, Is that right.
Yeah, Actually, so they have gone through the process of accepting students for twenty twenty five. So Mount Albert Gramma did take out of zone students for twenty twenty five, but it's looking ahead for the students that want to come in in twenty twenty six that they're unlikely to
take out of z own students. Other schools haven't said exactly what they're going to do by twenty twenty six, but we just know that they're under pressure, and in this case, like Auckland Grammar was saying, they were still just at the very beginning of their priority lists when they had to sort of shut off the number of students that they'd accepted by the time we spoke to them.
By the end of this year, the Ministry expects to add sixty one new enrollment schemes to manage overcrowding and ensure students can attend schools in the area. It takes the total to one thousand, two hundred and eighty two schemes affecting slightly more than half the schools in the country.
Ideally, it is a sort of school that you feel would be a good set to your kids, to your child, it would be really good if they could go to that school, and at the moment you don't necessarily have that option.
What sort of impact is this having on families trying to get into these schools.
Yeah, I spoke to a number of mothers who were they had become passionate about this issue. This is what they were thinking about, like constantly, even struggling to sleep sometimes, they were saying, So they're examining, they're like looking into what they can do to get their kids into schools right across the city, and sometimes they're going in the ballot of multiple schools and just hoping. So some of
them are having to really rethink what they're doing. You know, they're really having to think, we do I actually have to move into the zone. And some cases, you know, not only is moving in the zone expensive and not everyone can do that, but even when it's possible, some people live in other parts of the city for reasons, you know, they're close to family that can help out with child care issues like that. So for those mums who do want to get into these schools, it's a really big.
Issue for them. I remember when I was applying for high school, and I don't want to say what year was, Ben, but I remember that the school nearest to me was a Catholic school, and there was a chance that I wasn't going to get in, and it seemed like the end of the world at that point. I remember my father having to write a letter saying that his side of the family was Catholic and all this stuff. Do you have a similar experience.
I wasn't a pagan like you, I guess no. Actually, I was in a small town, so it was not so hard to go into a Catholic school. Yeah, but yeah, if you could pay the fee, they went under the role pressure in my little town growing up, Ben.
Isn't there an argument to be made that all schools should just be of the same quality and parents shouldn't feel obliged to move to a different suburb just to get their kid into one particular school.
Certainly, probably anyone you talk to would believe that should be the case. Right Anyone living across the city, you would hope would have the confidence in their local school to enroll in their school. Why that doesn't happen is something that would be debated. So in some cases, parents may just really love another school on the other side of the city, so they're doing it because they went there or that's what they want for their child, right It might not be a reflection on the school in
their zone. In other cases, some schools may not perform as well as perhaps some of the better known schools. Other reasons kids might go to some of the better known schools is they might think that they're going to have different types of contacts that they can keep through their lives as adults. So there's a whole bunch of things going in not necessarily all reflecting quality, but getting all schools up to an equally high standard would obviously
alleviate this issue. Thanks for joining us, Ben.
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.