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Living proof of the lack of realism on the left

The Te Hurihanga programme was apparently a Phil Goff supported initiative designed to turn "troubled youth around".

And who can argue with that.

The pilot program has been running in the Waikato for the past three years and according to its supporters has been a great success for the eight graduates, who have thus far not re-offended since completing the program.

The only trouble - the cost!

Simon Power has estimated it has cost more than $600,000 per graduate for an eighteen month course.

And that is unsustainable - that must be more than it costs to educate a Doctor from kindergarten to through medical school surely. And spent in eighteen months not eighteen+ years as it would be for a medical school graduate.

Wouldn't it be nice to put that amount of resource into every kid in New Zealand not just the trouble makers but of course it can't be done - but over at the Standard they seem to think it is a sign of the National parties short sightedness and placing priority on "tax cuts" rather than assisting the under privileged.

Which just goes to demonstrate just how unrealistic the left can be.

Comments

  1. Whilst I think that cost is excessive as well, in 2008/09, the average annual cost of keeping someone in prison was $90,977. That doesn't take into account court costs for the state to get offenders there.

    An offender would only need to spend 6.5 years in prison to account for that $600,000.

    The problem is that it's a case of "we'll never really know" - without the course, would those graduates have become repeat offenders that ultimately cost the system well more than $600,000.

    That figure also takes into account the set-up costs, which means that cost per student would reduce over time and in ten years, that figure would look significantly different/less.

    The way the figures have been given to the public would be like looking at my bike that I use to commute to work just after I purchased it - one week in the cost per km was high, six months on, the cost per km is a lot lower - the longer you go, the less the set-up costs factor in. The same with businesses as related to profits over time.

    I would also be interested to see if, given more time to refine the course (3 years isn't long), the success ratio of enrolments vs graduations could be improved.

    -Frank

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've put an evaluation of this on my blog. My thinking may be completely off base, so I wanted to explain my thoughts a little more and give people the chance to critique or agree :)

    http://bit.ly/aLvcFR

    -Frank

    ReplyDelete

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