Liz Gordon: Education researcher on the cancellation of Gloriavale school's licence

It's thought the closure of Gloriavale school is more complicated than just finding a new school.   

The Secretary for Education has cancelled the Christian sect school’s licence, forcing it closed from January.  

It's been on notice for several weeks after failing another audit and being ruled physically and mentally unsafe for students.  

Education researcher Liz Gordon told Francesca Rudkin says it's not as straightforward as moving the students elsewhere.  

She wants the ministry to take a group of professional teachers into the community, to allow the kids to be taught there.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gloriaville's School will shut down from January next year. It
has failed two Education Review Office audits and in July
was found to be physically and emotionally unsafe space for students.
Miss Gordon is an educational researcher and she joins me. Now,
good morning, Liza On. This has been a long time coming,
hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Oh yeah, I've been calling for a closure of the
school for fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Okay, So will the children be allowed to be homeschooled
or part of Takura or are they losing the ability
to do that as well?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well. Everybody has the right to an education in New
Zealand and it's up to the Ministry of Education to
ensure that they get a different one. But it's more
complicated than that too, because these children have been educated
for years in our fundamentaler's Christian beliefs. There was a
private school and they were taught their own curriculum. They

(00:55):
were taught that girls must submit themselves to their husbands,
that their own new role was to leave school at
fifteen and to serve the community and to serve their
husbands and have as many babies as possible. The men
were taught that their job was on the farms and
to again to serve the community. There was sexual abuse,

(01:18):
there was violence, you know that there. So it's not
just a matter of continuing their education, having examine place
to resolve all the past issues and the and and
give these children some human rights and.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
What so, what is the best outcome for these children.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
They should go to it. They should go to an
ordinary school. But I think get you see, they Gloria
Vale built a big school. It was a private school
so got subsidies from from the tax player for many
years and it built out of that a big school
which is sitting there on the grounds. And my own

(02:01):
view is that the ministry should in the interim negotiate
to put in a group a number of professional teachers,
bring them to the community and have the kids taught there.
Now it's not the ideal situation, but the nearest school
is all good. Half recorders are an now away. There

(02:22):
is another one a bit further away from that. They're
both very small schools. I don't think that to kurna
education where children get papers through the mail is going
to cut it. Well, not through the male Now it's
it's online, but I don't think that's going to cut it.
I don't think homeschooling is going to cut it, because

(02:43):
the parents of those children were also brought up in
their ideology and have no other focus for educating them,
and so it's just going to continues the abuse of
education un less than some sort of intervention.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
As the public schools that are around them, would they
be resourced well enough to support a transition like this
to have these children come from Gloriaville into their schools.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So the new classrooms two hundred and twenty four I
believe are children. So that's all nine or ten classrooms
that those classrooms would need to be everything from year
one right up to year thirteen. And of course the
answer is no. Well, I think it was more from
double size of the post of schools. So it's awfully

(03:35):
late in the year. Yes, it is awfully late in
the year for two hundred and twenty four abused children
to get a decent education in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Three, and as you point out, very complicated, quite a
complex situation to try and fix there. Thank you so much, Liz,
really appreciate your thoughts. This morning. For more from Early
Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news Talks it'd
be from five am weekdays.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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