Face of the Day

Education Minister Erica Stanford is backing down on a last-minute change to home schooling rules, less than 24 hours after introducing the rule and voting for it in parliament.

The remarkably fast U-turn came about on Wednesday, as children and their parents gathered outside parliament for a picnic to protest the government’s unexpected new rules impacting home schooling.

Stanford first proposed changing the rules just last week. She then debated the new rules, and the coalition parties voted for them, on Tuesday. But by lunchtime on Wednesday, ACT MPs and NZ First leader Winston Peters were outside parliament speaking to kids and parents who were fuming about the last-minute amendment.

And Stanford, just a few minutes before a meeting with home schooling advocates, sent out a statement saying she was backing down on the change, which was voted on fewer [than] just 16 hours prior.

Stuff