A charter school for the underprivileged denizens of the Remuera ghetto?

Putain de bordel de merde! (Pardon my French)

Thank you to John O’Neill for authoring the following piece.

One of the new publicly funded charter schools opening in February 2025 will be the École Française Internationale Auckland (EFIA), located in Remuera, initially offering the equivalent of ‘our’ reception and junior primary level schooling. There are currently two state or state integrated primary schools in Remuera, with Equity Index (EQI) numbers of 357 and 346 respectively. (There are also at least two private, fee paying primary schools in Remuera). The EQI scale runs from 344 (most advantaged) to 569 (most disadvantaged) so Remuera is effectively already one of, if not the most socio-economically and educationally privileged locality in the country.

EFIA will teach the French curriculum and values in French for 3.5 days a week, and in English for 1.5 days a week. (NB France ranks below average and declining in the latest PISA assessments, 16th out of 19 EU countries in PIRLS, and second worst OECD country performer in TiMMS.) EFIA advertises maximum classes of 15 and no tuition fees for children aged between 4.5 and 7.5 years (2025 eligibility). EFIA aims to be accredited by the Agence pour l’enseignment français à l’étranger (AEFE) the Agency for French Education Abroad, within 2 years. AEFE may accredit an applicant school that “teaches French curriculums abroad, exactly as taught in France, in accordance with the requirements and values of the French educational system”. More specifically, AEFE accreditation requires “conformity of the teaching with the values and programmes defined by the French Ministry of Education and Youth (MENJS)”. (Presumably that would include a ban on the hijab and abaya among other ‘obviously religious symbols’).

So, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask: (i) why the Charter School Authorisation Board would recommend and the Associate Minister of Education would approve such an esoteric schooling application; and (ii) what urgent national schooling priorities and inequalities of achievement outcome will it address? According to the EFIA itself, as quoted by RNZ, "This school is ideal for French families who wish for their children to continue their education in French. It would also improve the recruitment powers of New Zealand companies for French workers and the ability for French companies to establish workforces in New Zealand by reducing disruptions to French education." Improve French companies’ recruitment powers? Reduce disruptions to French education? Ça me fait chier! One wonders how well an application to establish an Arabic-medium madrasa to teach Islamic subjects and the Quran might be received by the Authorisation Board?

It is generally accepted that, all things considered, household income poverty and material hardship are the greatest barriers to children’s educational success, not familiarity with French language and culture (although these may conceivably be an advantage in the bistros, patisseries and escargotières that may shortly line the leafy boulevards of Parnell). On the far more pressing structural income poverty and material hardship issue (that the Associate Minister always seems reluctant to talk about), in 2023 there were 202,100 kiwi kids living in income poverty households (after housing costs) and 143,700 living in material hardship. These are the children most in need of long-term, wrap around publicly funded support if they are to have a reasonable chance of leading an ethical life in community as adults. And, if the current government’s rhetoric is to be believed, every public spending dollar counts and every public dollar spent has to add measurable value to the economy and society.

In this context, then, according to the 2018 census, there were 7,677 persons in the country as a whole who identified as French. Of these, 13.5 percent or 1,036 were aged 5-9 (the approximate initial target group for EFIA). According to the 2023 census 1.1 percent of the national population reported being able to speak French (that figure includes me btw). In NCEA in 2023, 100 schools offered French at Level 1 to 1,240 students; 110 schools at Level 2 to 709 students; and 93 schools to 452 students, or 0.9 percent of the cohort, at Level 3. At tertiary level, there were 275 students studying French nationally in 2023, a decline from 715 in 2014. By EFIA’s own admission, there is absolutely no domestic New Zealand educational need here other than for French families who see Aotearoa as ‘abroad’. EFIA’s proudly proclaimed unique selling point is its membership of a global network of French language, French curriculum, and French values private schooling, for crying out loud. (A quick Google search suggests that every one of the other several hundred AEFE accredited schools around the world may well be private sector only, and full fee-paying.)

Other than the generally well-received End of Life Choice Act 2019, whatever else he achieves during his time in politics, the Associate Minister of Education has already been memorialised in popular culture for two things. The first is him twerking the entire nation on Dancing with the Stars in 2018; the second was his schoolboy gaffe in 2015 during the flag debate when he observed that “the French love the coq”. Intentional or not, both were characteristically provocative, disruptive and attention seeking. The decision here to approve public funding for what is so obviously yet another taxpayer subsidy to a tiny minority of the wealthiest and most advantaged fraction of our deeply unequal society is clearly more than an attempt to danser le twerk or find a jeux de mots in search of cheap political headlines - it is an educational and a moral disgrace. Tu te fiche de ma gueule, monsieur le ministre associé?