New Zealand Schools OER Portal/Sustainable education Living within our means

Living Within Our Means

• Sustainability of education within the New Zealand Education Sector is dependent on working within our means
• The Ministry of Education in their wisdom fund schools in an equitable manner sufficiently to manage the day to day running of the school, its on going maintenance and for the employment of necessary staff members

Key Questions

• Should we need or seek external funding to run our schools?
• If we do need external sources of funding are we being greedy?
• Should a school compromise its ethics by accepting funding assistance from the proceeds of corporations that may provide goods and services that are not aligned philosophically with the direction of the school or from the proceeds of gambling or the sale of alcohol?

We will need the equivalent of another earth if every school in the world sought the same resources that NZ schools presently have 

Bigger Questions

• So should New Zealand schools endeavour to keep developing nations poor to maintain the resourcing level we are accustomed to?
• Should we raise the resourcing level of schools in all nations to that of a New Zealand school at the detriment of the planet?

Our learning society. A classroom in Kuito, Angola.

Image courtesy of Living in Kuito

Our learning society. School children in Otago, New Zealand