School camps could be canned because of burdensome new guidelines for what does and doesn't count as a school donation, say some principals.

But the Ministry of Education says the new guidelines, part of the rollout of the Government's "scrapping" of school donations, just set out what the law has been for the last thirty years - that state education should always be free.

The Government has moved to replace school donations from next year with a $150 per-pupil grant for any decile 1 to 8 school that voluntarily stops asking parents for donations. 

Doing so has required refreshed guidelines of what schools can and can't charge for - and what should be considered a donation.

School camps, should they contain any part of the curriculum, cannot be compulsorily charged for, according to the new guidelines. Schools should instead make clear that payments for camp are voluntary donations.

Lynmore School is the only Rotorua school above the decile cut-off for the new donations scheme.

Principal Lorraine Taylor said this put her in a double bind as she will be competing with schools that won't need to ask for donations.

She would likely have to cancel her school camp next year as it was clearly part of the curriculum but she doubted enough parents would pay for it.

"We won't go on camp. If we can't charge for camp we'll just have to cancel them," Taylor said.

"The Ministry neatly covers this off by saying that only school camps that are not part of the New Zealand school curriculum can be covered by parents. Which is absurd because we are a school - everything we do is part of the curriculum. We don't run camps as additional fun days with no learning attached."

Taylor has been a principal for 15 years but says she has never seen the rules for donations "written in black and white like that".

She says it is long overdue for the ministry to make clear what exactly the rules are but doing so while not allowing high-decile schools to get into the donations scheme made things very difficult.

Oropi School Principal Andrew King said enacting this guideline would likely make his school camp unworkable, as many parents would stop paying for camp.

"The traditional use of the word donation for the last 20 years has been 'the school donation' which always excluded things like camp," King said.

He acknowledged that the law was the law but said in practice schools had been charging for things like school camps and stationary packs for decades.

"This is a can of worms. It's bringing to the fore knowledge that's sort of been forgotten about over the last ten to twenty years for parents."

He said only about half of his parents paid the current donation and if that few paid for camp it would have to be cut back significantly.

Both principals said they had hardship grants for children who could not afford camp.

National's education spokeswoman Nikki Kaye said the reality was schools had been relying on parents to pay for activities for decades.

"When the ministry has this crackdown via guidance the net result is tens of thousands of dollars less for schools," Kaye said.

She said the problem was the Government's "incredibly complicated" donations scheme which didn't quite deliver "free education" as a third of schools were exempt. National had launched its own funding review.

"Schools in higher deciles feel as though they have been shafted. Not only did the Education Minister exclude them from the policy, but the Ministry is also enforcing new guidance around what school can or cannot charge, which sees some schools predicting they will lose tens of thousands of dollars."

Wellington's Newtown School, which is decile 5, will see a  "substantial" increase in the funding it will be able to get as a result of opting in to the Government's scheme, board of trustees chairwoman Jessica Gorman said.

"Many families at our school are not in a position to make financial donations, so this scheme made sense for our school," Gorman said.

"For a community like ours any scheme that takes the financial burden away from families and improves access to educational participation is very beneficial."

Teacher's union NZEI, which also covers principals, supported the scheme but wanted it extended to all schools.

NZEI President Lynda Stuart said there had been a lot of murkiness around what was and wasn't a donation and it was time for that to be sorted out.

"People will be reevaluating things at the moment to see what they do charge for and they don't. There will be some real grey areas," Stuart said.

The new scheme was far from perfect but was a start, she said.

Education Ministry deputy secretary Katrina Casey said there had been clear guidelines on what was and wasn't a donation for many years.

"The law has always been really clear that  schools cannot charge fees for activities and resources that relate to the curriculum," Casey said.

"Schools have however been able to ask for donations towards these things. Parents have been free to pay these in full, in part, or not at all."

"Requirements around school camps remain unchanged. Schools can still ask for donations towards camps even, in the case of overnight camps, if they have opted into the scheme."