Figures given to Newsworthy by the Ministry of Education indicate that many country schools are in a pretty sorry state.
Over the last decade, 57 of them have shut down with more teetering on the brink.
The reality is times are changing. Small towns are shrinking, and so naturally, so are their school rolls.
One little school in Cheltenham, outside Feilding, has been in operation 129 years, but its roll has fallen so drastically it is now on the brink of being unsustainable.
"At the moment we have a little roll of seven kids, so we had a community meeting a couple of weeks ago," says Louise Ilton, the school principal, "and the community is really keen to keep the school going."
Watch the video for the full Newsworthy report.
