National's education spokesperson Anne Tolley says her party wants to work with the education sector to look at how to reward top performing schools.
National announced its policy on Monday, saying it will clarify what is expected of schools, make education agencies actively engage with failing schools and link funding to performance.
[image:3848:half:right]There is no detail, but it is enough to deeply worry some school groups who say the late release of the policy means there is not enough time for debate ahead of Saturday's election.
Mrs Tolley told Radio New Zealand's Morning Report programme on Tuesday that National wants to recognise schools that perform well.
"What I'd like to explore is how do we reward those schools, how do we incentivise other schools to be top performing schools as well, and that's something I'd really like to talk through with the sector and they've raised with me over the last couple of years as well."
But Labour's education spokesperson Sue Moroney told the programme National's policy is short on detail and new ideas.
[image:3849:half:right]"The only thing that is new in this policy is that they're using education to try and sell their unpopular state asset sale agenda. They've said that they only new thing they will do if they get to sell state assets is to put money into modernising the bricks and mortar."
National announced earlier in the election campaign that $1 billion raised from its proposed partial assets sales programme would be used to modernise schools.
