Goodbye to the cakestall? | Auckland Opinion | Local Voices from Auckland, New Zealand

This time next week all the political jousting and electioneering will be over, along with it the sideshows of tea tapes, worms and promises of a perfect world.

For the average person, life will probably go on as usual, the same bills need to be paid, the same mouths need to be fed, and there's only four weeks until the school holidays. That will come as a relief to some parents, whose school year is taken up with devising major fundraising productions to boost the school coffers.

I'm not sure when all this began. One minute it seemed to be car washes, cake stalls and galas; next minute I noticed a website for an event that looked like a proper wine and food event, and realised it was a school fundraiser!

The shift in the way schools fundraise is largely the domain of higher decile schools, of course. They say such events are needed because those schools receive less funding from the Government. They have professional parent power to draw on, business people who can pull a few strings, and parents with a bit of spare time to lend a hand. It's still a lot of hard work though, but schools like Pt Chevalier Primary, Macleans College and Mangawhau must be delighted with the results. At Mangawhau they raised $80,000 this year, enough to pay a sports specialist teacher's salary and more.

But is that where it's going? That for schools to have the latest technology and specialist teachers, parents have to become professional fundraisers?I talked to family in Wellington and they say it's starting to happen there too, although the humble school gala and fundraising quiz nights are still more common than the large scale events we're seeing around Auckland.

It will be interesting to see if the trend continues or whether at some point schools will actually receive enough funding from the Government - whoever that may be - to keep equipped with the latest technology. Earlier in the year there was an outcry when Orewa College told parents that next year students would need to have an ipad or netbook - to keep up with the new ways of teaching and learning. Could you afford to add that to the stationery list? Guess those parents could always organise a bit of a fundraiser. They could get some tips from the professionals the Aucklander met in this week's story.

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