It wants the system overhauled and additional funding provided.

Responding to the need for extra funding, Alan Blackie, chair of the Marist Alternative Education Centre in Glenfield, said additional funding would be very welcome.

"Only 60% of the Marist Alternative Education Centre's funding comes from Government; the rest the Board has to fund-raise for," Blackie told CathNews.

The Marist Alternative Education Centre is one of many alternative education centres around New Zealand.

Blackie said that about 25 years ago, the Marist Brothers established the school for students in danger of being suspended.

"Unfortunately, the need hasn't gone away; rather, it has increased," he said.

Blackie told CathNews that he admired those involved in alternative education.

"For many reasons, our students are less equipped to learn in a traditional school setting."

He says the school works around showing respect.

"The school staff work hard to show respect to students and, in turn, looks to the students to mirror that respect to themselves and others."

A realist, Blackie told CathNews the school has "some wins".

Acknowledging it is tough work, he says the school is very pleased that it has a registered teacher and is well supported by teaching assistants, all with university degrees in Science and Fine Arts.

Education Review Office report

In a report released this week, ERO says few of the at-risk over 2000 13- to 16-year-olds enrolled in the programme achieved NCEA Level 2.

"Too many ended up on benefits later in life," ERO says.

"Alternative Education is potentially a missed opportunity to change these young people's life trajectories.

"They are often engaged and attending, but the current model of provision is failing to provide them with a quality education and may be contributing to poorer outcomes.

"The long-term costs for the young person, their family and broader society are very significant."

This year's additional Budget provision equated to only $16,536 per student - less than the funding provided per student in some small secondary schools.

Having to fund-raise to make ends meet does mean some schools have closed through insufficient funding.

Providers offer small-group learning with individual tutors, which students enjoy, but ERO found the results aren't good.

"The current model of Alternative Education is inadequate ... leading to worse outcomes than for other young people," the report says.

"Teaching is weak and teaching resources are inadequate. Only one in five educators ... are registered teachers.

"Facilities are often so run down they act as a barrier to learning. We visited 22 ... sites and found six operating out of poor-quality."

ERO recommends

The report recommends the Education Ministry (MoE) help schools identify and support those most at risk of disengaging from school and provide effective options for pupils who aren't thriving.

It also recommends overhauling alternative education to provide "a clear national model with standards for high-quality provision and funding".

It must be enough to meet students' complex needs.

Alternative education should be based on a national evidence-based teaching model. Registered teachers should be engaged. Small classes and kaupapa Maori approaches should be offered.

The MoE should ensure suitable facilities are provided.

Some of ERO's statistics

• 76 percent of students preferred alternative education to their previous school
• in the year before beginning alternative education, students miss about 58 days of school
• 68 percent are Maori
• 63 percent are male
• only 9 percent achieved NCEA Level 2 compared to 32 percent of students from comparable backgrounds not in alternative education
• by age 24, 63 percent were on benefits compared to 51 percent for the comparator group
• students are generally exposed to a wide range of negative social environments
• students may be in alternative education from several weeks to several years

Source

• RNZ
• Supplied: Marist Alternative Education Centre in Glenfield.

Deciding then to catch the schools out by visiting again when they were least expected, they found the children equally as good.

The Education Review Office has always given the schools good reviews, Principal Andrew Cranshaw said in the Wanganui Chronicle.

Cranshaw is also the superior of The Society of St Pius X in New Zealand.

Whanganui's St Anthony's Parish is made up of families from the Society of St Pius X.

It has two schools on its Alma Rd site. St Anthony Catholic Primary is for children in Years 1-6. St Dominic College is for girls in Years 7-13 and St Augustine College is for boys the same age. The two senior schools are together for convenience as St Dominic College.

There are 130 pupils in total.

Seventy of them are in the senior schools, including 10 girls from out of town who board with the traditionalist Dominican Sisters of Wanganui on the site.

The precise status of the SSPX is not clear. It isn't officially schismatic.

But on the other hand SSPX priests do not have faculties to exercise priestly ministry.

The Society of St. Pius X was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church following the Second Vatican Council.

In 1988 when Lefebvre consecrated four new bishops without papal mandate the four men and Lefebvre himself were excommunicated by John Paul II.

This excommunication applied only to these individual men, and not to the SSPX as a whole.

Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of the four bishops.

But this did not bring with it a reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the whole institute of the SSPX, which remains a separate issue.

A distinction has to be made between the Pope's concern for the spiritual wellbeing of the four men who had been under excommunication, and who had respectfully petitioned the Pope to return to full communion with the Church; and the canonical status of the entire SSPX, which still has never been recognised by Rome.

Pope Benedict said "As long as the Society [of Saint Pius X] does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church…."

The Vatican and the SSPX have continued to talked to each other with a view to resolving dogmatic differences.

But the Vatican (most notably the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller) has obliquely indicated that a reconciliation is not likely to come soon.

This stance has been echoed by some in the SSPX as well, who do not appear to be in a hurry to regularise their status in the Church.

In his letter for the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis established that those who approach the priests of the SSPX for the Sacrament of Reconciliation "shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins" during the Holy Year.

Source

• Wanganui Chronicle
• canonlawmadeeasy.com
• radiovaticana.va
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com