Parents of many country kids in Southland may be in for a shock next year when they learn they cannot get their kids on the school bus.

Southland Primary Principals' Association president Tim Lovelock said 85 per cent of primary schools in the wider Southland district had collectively decided, subject to Board of Trustees support, to prevent children at their schools from travelling on Education Ministry-funded buses through their local school zones to other schools.

Those students understood to be most affected would be children in primary schools who could have stayed but were instead being sent to secondary schools to start in year 7.

Lovelock said the 70 schools had taken the stand to protect their own schools. When schools lost students they lost Government funding which resulted in a loss of resources and reduced opportunities for their remaining students, he said.

The situation had arisen after the Ministry of Education decided parents must first get written permission from their local schools if they wanted their children to be bused through their local school zones to outside schools.

However, the ministry said the rules had been in place for many years but schools had recently been given a reminder message.

"We said if you have been transporting some ineligible students please get it sorted by 1 January 2015," ministry spokesman Kim Shannon said.

Lovelock said the policy had put primary principals in an impossible position and had the potential to tear communities apart and result in school principals and Board of Trustee members resigning.

If principals gave the written permission they were effectively agreeing to their schools losing resources; but if they didn't give permission they could create tension in their communities.

"You can imagine what pressure this puts some schools under, because everything around the resourcing of schools is based on student numbers ... every child you lose impacts on all facets of a school's operation."

The 70 schools associated with the Southland Primary Principals' Association believed education in Southland was best served when all schools were as strong as possible, and that would not be achieved if the schools lost students, Lovelock said.

"In order to protect [primary] schools from pressure, Southland Primary Principals Association members have collectively decided that it would be in the best interests of schooling in Southland for no letters of permission regarding year 7 and 8 students to be written as a matter of course."

Parents not given the written permission to get their children on the school buses would have to find alternative transport for their kids to get to their chosen schools outside of their local zones, he said.

The issue was expected to come to a head at the secondary school open days being held at the beginning of next term.

Those children travelling from outlying full primary schools would require written permission from their local schools to catch the bus to their chosen high school, he said.

Lovelock said the ministry had forced the issue on to primary schools instead of making its own decision.

"Where is the support and backing of the ministry to protect the operational integrity of our schools without making it a very personal decision."

Individual primary school principals contacted were generally unwilling to discuss the issue, given Lovelock was speaking for them, but one said it was a "big ask" to assume schools would willingly sign away students whose presence ensured the school's staffing numbers and resources were retained.

"It's a big call [from the ministry] to leave it up to schools to make that decision that could potentially pit them against parts of their community. I think there needs to be a rule that's consistent for everybody."

Invercargill Secondary Principals' Group chairwoman Robyn Hickman said the ministry's enforcement of the rule would work against the increased collegiality that had developed between Southland schools.

James Hargest College principal Andy Wood said his school would this year advise applicants from rural out-of-zone locations to carefully check their eligibility and access to buses travelling to James Hargest College.

Shannon said the Education Ministry's priority was to ensure all students were able to get to school every day.

Some parents and caregivers chose for their children to attend a school further away.

"The school bus provider may agree to transport ineligible students at their own cost if there is space on the bus after all eligible students are on board, a fare is paid, and the approval of the nearest appropriate school has been obtained."

Bureaucratic nonsense

Southland Boys' High School rector Ian Baldwin says "bureaucratic nonsense" will not stop any child from the country areas from attending his school in Invercargill if they want to.

The primary schools were quite naturally trying to protect their school roles, Baldwin said.

"If [primary] schools in the country wish to force the issue and children can't use ministry funded buses to attend Southland Boys' High School then we will find a way, with the parents, to get those students to our school."

"We wouldn't allow any bureaucratic nonsense to stand in the way of freedom of choice. We haven't in the past and we won't in the future."

Baldwin said he believed the rule around kids getting buses to schools had been in place for years but, in the interests of freedom of choice, the ministry had never previously made a big deal of it.

If the rule was stuck to rigorously it would be a nightmare to enforce, he believed.

Children would not stop going to his school "just because of an interpretation of an age old rule", Baldwin said.

"They [primary schools] can't stop the children coming here if they find their own way to get here."

He encouraged parents to contact him if they were unable to get their children on buses to Boys' High, saying a way would be found to get them there.