http://www.ahe.org.nz/2010/05/meeting-with-moe/

A number of home educators were able to work together to resolve the difficulties, including the NCHENZ committee, Craig Smith (director of Home Education Foundation and member of NCHENZ) and some individual home educators. NCHENZ would like to thank home educators who made us aware that TCS was asking the home educated students to give up their exemptions including a member of AHE who contacted me directly. Thank you to Penny Bilton, (NCHENZ chairperson) and Marianne Wilson (NCHENZ committee member and former chairperson of NCHENZ) who flew from Auckland to Palmerton North and met with officials and Heather Roy Associate Education Minister.

I have included Craig Smith’s report for more details. I would urge home educators to know the law regarding our exemptions. Here is a link to section 21 in the Education Act. Our exemptions expire when the student turns 16 years or when a child returns to school. The Ministry of Education continues to pay the homeschool allowance up to age 19 on the basis of our declaration that we are still home educating.

Craig Smith writes

“Getting our home educated 16 year olds into the Young Adult (YA) scheme recently opened by The NZ Correspondence School (TCS) has caused a few issues recently. (The YA scheme gives 16, 17, 18 and 19 year olds, who are not enrolled in another school, TCS lessons free of charge. That is, home educators, once they turn 16, can go for NCEA qualifications to get into Polytech, University, Air Force and other places via TCS at home for free.) I talked to one mum who had been given the royal run-around at both TCS and the MoE. She spoke to five people at TCS, two who said it was no problem, three who said she had to ensure her 16-year-old’s exemption was cancelled. She got similar treatment at MoE and still didn’t know what to do.

“Well, it turns out that TCS was labouring under the mistaken notion that home educators with exemptions retained these exemptions until the 1st of January after their 19th birthdays. I dare say some home educators thought this as well. After all, doesn’t the MoE continue to pay out the home education allowance until the 1st of January after their 19th birthdays? Yes, they do, but in fact, the exemptions are cancelled automatically by law on the 16^th birthday. The MoE, out of the goodness of their hearts, bless them, according to a policy they adopted way back in 1989, do continue to pay out the home education allowance, even though the exemption is cancelled. They do this solely based on the home educator’s response on the statutory declaration in relation to the young person who has reached the age of 16.

“I had a very friendly chat with Kathryn Sweet, Enrolment Services Manager at TCS on Wednesday 4 February. She had just been made aware of Section 21(8)(a) of the Education Act, a bit that was added by the infamous Education Legislation Amendment Bill (No 2) of 1998, which was nearly totally ignored and overlooked from then until now.1 Sure enough, this bit says an exemption granted under Section 21 is automatically cancelled when the exempted person turns 16 or enrols in a registered school, whichever comes first. “The confusion was happening because when TCS (which is a registered school, by the way) checked the enrolment status of home educators who applied for the YA scheme at age 16, 17, 18 or 19, they found that home educators of this age were still listed by the MoE as exempted from enrolment. One cannot be exempted from enrolment in a registered school (as home educators are) and enrolled at a registered school (as TCS is) at the same time. It was for this reason of logic that TCS has recently been giving home educators a hard time about enrolling them. The MoE listed home educators aged 16 and over as exempted for their own administrative purposes, when in fact, according to Section 21(8)(a) of the Education Act, their exemptions were cancelled and no longer valid. “This confusion has now been cleared up. There should be no trouble with home educators or anyone else aged 16, 17, 18 or 19 enrolling in TCS.

“ Now the question is, once my home educated 16-year-old or over is enrolled with TCS, can we still continue to receive the home education allowance from the MoE? This is an internal policy decision of the MoE which they are going to have to iron out themselves. Home educators who have rung and/or emailed the MoE about this have been told a variety of things. To date, I have been unable to contact the correct people in order to get a definitive answer. “For what it is worth, TCS students who have been full-time with TCS do continue to receive the TCS supervisory allowance (a similar allowance to the home education allowance, but not exactly the same in either amount or perceived purpose) until the 1^st of January after their 19^th birthdays as long as they remain full-time TCS students and return assignments regularly. “ There was another area of confusion. School students aged 15 who got early release exemptions under Section 22 of the Education Act are allowed to get into TCS YA scheme. Wording on the MoE website does not specify that */_only_/* 15-year-olds with Section 22 early release exemptions can get into the YA scheme, but only mentions exempted students…which would seem to allow home educators of any age. Well, Kathryn Sweet of TCS was one of the negotiators with MoE when that policy was devised, and is adamant that the intention was only to include early release exemptions under Section 22. She is working to tighten up the wording on the website.

There was talk in 2008 about raising the school-leaving age or somehow ensuring 16 through 18-year-olds were still on the MoE books and either in school or work or some kind of training. It was Labour’s “School Plus” scheme. They were also going to repeal Section 22 and get rid of all early release exemptions forevermore. The Bill proposing this apparently sank out of sight along with Labour at the elections. However, the new Government is still formulating its own policies, deciding what Bills it will introduce. John Key has already mentioned his “Youth Guarantee” scheme, the details of which are still hazy, but the idea being 16 and 17-year-olds would get free access to further education and training via a range of options. Stay tuned for further developments. Notes: 1. The infamous Education Legislation Amendment Bill (No 2) of 1998 made many changes, but the ones home educators were concerned about at the time were the increased powers given to ERO Reviewers. These are now in Sections 323, 324 and 328 of the Education Act. The wee bit about exemptions being cancelled, now Section 21(8)(a), was in another part of the Bill and consequently was mostly ignored at the time and ever since because of the scary nature of the powers being given to ERO in the Bill. The vast majority of submissions, both written and in person, on this Bill were by home educators. The Hansard comments of the day show various MPs had some very complimentary things to say about home educators as a result of their submissions. See /TEACH Bulletin /No. 19 of August 1998 or Hansard of 23 June 1998.. *Craig & Barbara Smith*

“Yesterday I heard of another person who had been (incorrectly) told by the NZ Correspondence School that they had to give up their HE cert.

The MoE says that we don’t have to, as we are still supervising the kid’s studies, but sometimes NZCS staff can’t get past the thought that a kid can’t be at school and enrolled as an adult with them “so therefore” the kid must leave the (home)school to be able to enroll. – Wrong. Our kids “left school” at 6 yo (or whatever), and our home is not a school. (For the question “When did you leave school?” – My kids usu put something like, “I have never been to school.”)

Please pass this info around to as many people (or email lists) as possible, so that no other HEers unnecessarily lose their exemptions. ”

I quote from the NCHENZ informational web-pages
“Homeschooled students keep their exemptions as they are not enrolled in the school, they are purchasing curriculum, and their parents are still eligible for the homeschool supervisory allowance.
We recommend you keep your exemption active as long as possible, since new exemptions are not granted to students over 15 yrs, and once it lapses it will not be reactivated.” see NCHENZ web-page here

see this page also ( although it is from WINZ regarding work requirements it spells out the policy

“2. Partners who home school under the Ministry of Education can purchase courses provided by the Correspondence School as part of their child’s education programme.”

You can have a look around their catalogue here.