{"id":18712,"date":"2026-10-13T05:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18712"},"modified":"2026-10-13T05:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:57:10","slug":"more-to-child-poverty-than-school-uniform-costs-advocates-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18712","title":{"rendered":"More to child poverty than school uniform costs, advocates say"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The founder of children’s charity KidsCan says there needs to be a focus on reducing child poverty<\/a> overall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It comes as the Labour Party says it will cut back-to-school costs<\/a> for families by making school uniforms cheaper and allowing for “affordable, generic” alternatives to be used as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The ACT Party earlier this year also said it would campaign on cutting uniform costs<\/a>, calling them “absolutely ridiculous”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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KidsCan founder and chief executive Dame Julie Chapman said it could be challenging for families who had limited choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We know that it is challenging for families to afford school uniforms,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The more choice they have certainly can help to limit those costs as well.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Chapman said 169,000 children were living in material hardship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This is one mechanism for that, but I think we’ve also got to put the focus back on reducing child poverty overall, because that is still a massive issue for New Zealand.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Whangapar\u0101oa<\/div>
Secondary Principals Council chair Steve McCracken.<\/p>\n

Supplied \/ Whangapar\u0101oa College<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chair of the Secondary Principals Council Steve McCracken said he was surprised by the announcement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“School uniforms in one sense offer a sense of pride and a sense of belonging for the connection to the school and the area that they’re in, but there is that cost factor that is attributed to the need for that,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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McCraken said many schools already helped families pay off uniforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Expanding the school donations scheme or increasing funding for operations could be alternatives to support families, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“[It] doesn’t take away the impact on families particularly at the start of the year, but there could be ways of supplying things like refill and teaching resources that would offset some of the further costs for young people and their families as they start school.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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McCracken said he could see the Labour Party’s perspective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it wasn’t just uniforms, Chapman said one of biggest challenges in the schools KidsCan supported was the need for food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“That has increased year on year, and the last two terms have seen our biggest food distribution, the biggest amount of need we have seen since we’ve been going, and that’s 22 years,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Things that are going to make it easier for families to provide for their children in general are really important.”<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founder of children’s charity KidsCan says there needs to be a focus on reducing child poverty overall. It comes as the Labour Party says it will cut back-to-school costs for families by making school uniforms cheaper and allowing for “affordable, generic” alternatives to be used as well. The ACT Party earlier this year also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18714,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18712\/revisions\/18714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}