Education
The first Catholic School in New Zealand was opened in 1840, the year the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, at Kororareka and was called St Peter's School. Initially Catholic missionaries, led by Bishop Pompallier, focused on schools for Māori. It was therefore Catholic laymen who in 1841 established a school for the sons of settlers. This school was Auckland's first school of any sort. In 1877, the new central government passed a secular Education Act and the Church decided to establish its own network of schools. The system expanded rapidly. All Catholic schools are now integrated into the State system of education under the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act 1975. This means that all the operating costs of the schools are met by the Government of New Zealand, although the site and buildings continue to be owned by the local bishop or a religious order
In 2010, there were 190 Catholic primary schools in New Zealand and 49 secondary schools. Around 64,000 students were enrolled in 2008, or 11 percent of all students in the New Zealand school system. Academically, the schools do very well. Between 1994 and 2010, the rolls in Catholic schools increased by almost 22 percent. The New Zealand Catholic Education Office assists in the running of Catholic schools in New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: Roman Catholicism In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“Nature has taken more care than the fondest parent for the education and refinement of her children. Consider the silent influence which flowers exert, no less upon the ditcher in the meadow than the lady in the bower. When I walk in the woods, I am reminded that a wise purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is typified there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)