Schools to find $50,000

South Canterbury schools will have to fork out an estimated $50,000 to attend the Government's national standards training this year – money that could be better spent elsewhere, principals say.

South Canterbury Principals Association past president Wayne Facer said he calculated it had cost schools about $10,000 for the first training day last week, and he had heard there were four or five more sessions planned this year.

"This is money that could be going somewhere else. Schools have already worked out their budgets for the year. We only found out last week there would be more training. We haven't been told when the next one is." Mr Facer said each school had prepared an invoice to show how much their training day had cost.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said $26 million in funding had been reprioritised for professional development for teachers and principals, who had asked for support to help implement the national standards.

"Principals and lead teachers can choose to attend the workshops that are available in all regions, where they will be given support in leading staff meetings in their schools as they start to work with the standards. Online learning modules will also be available. It is normal for schools to pay for teacher release time for professional development."

Mr Facer said while that was true, most schools had not set aside money for professional development in national standards because they didn't know about the training at the time of preparing their budgets.

However, nearly every South Canterbury school sent staff to the first training day, run by College of Education staff, so they could ask questions about the standards, Mr Facer said.

"There were a number of questions highlighted by people that they just couldn't answer."

The introduction of the national standards this year has been clouded in controversy.

The New Zealand Educational Institute, the union representing primary school teachers, has circulated a petition calling for a trial of the national standards, although Ms Tolley has remained adamant there will be no test.

Some schools have said they will not implement the standards until they have been tested or until teachers have been trained in their implementation.

- © Fairfax NZ News