Otago Secondary Principals Association chairman and Otago Boys High School rector Clive Rennie said Otago's state schools would be "upset'' if independent (private) schools were given increased funding, because they had the capacity to set their own fees.
State schools were not allowed to set their own fees and were struggling to cope with the operations funding given by the Government, he said.
"State schools will be very upset if the Government increases grants to private schools before they look to seeif we are adequately funded,''Mr Rennie said.
New Zealand Secondary Principals Council chairman Arthur Graves said if parents chose to enrol their children in private schools, taxpayers should not be asked to foot the bill.
Mr Key's proposal would nearly double the money available to private schools and would be the first time taxpayer funding had increased since it was capped by Labour in 1999, Mr Graves said.
"People have the right to choose whether to enrol their child in a private school, but once they have made that choice, it is their responsibility to pay for it,'' Mr Graves said.
"Taxpayer money goes towards funding state education for the benefit of the whole country. If people choose to opt out of that system, why should all New Zealanders have to pay?''
Mr Graves said more money needed to be put into state sector education - something the National Party had admitted.
"National has been quite public about the need for more funding for state schools, so why should they be spending much-needed money in the private sector?'' he asked.
Mr Graves said the situation in Australia under then prime minister John Howard, where private schools were funded over state schools, was an example of the folly of National's plans.
"It was a disaster in Australia. You only need to look at the quality of the schools and their resources to see that. It takes the resources away from the schools that need them,'' he said.
However, Kings High School principal Colin Donald defended the proposal.
"I can understand it from a fiscal point of view. If they [the Government] let private schools run into the ground, it would cost them more money to build new state schools to accommodate the pupils coming out of them,'' Mr Donald said.
There are no private secondary schools in Otago, but there are five integrated schools which have the capacity to set their own fees.
None of the principals at Dunedin's four integrated schools was available for comment.
