Education Minister Dame Jennifer Smith was right in one respect when she issued her statement on the school suspension policy last week.If we teach our children anything, it is that we should abide by the rules and regulations that have been laid down, assuming of course that they are not immoral, plainly unfair or discriminatory.In that sense, Dame Jennifer was right to warn principals and teachers about suspending students without due process.However, the problem is that Dame Jennifer is defending a system that is overly bureaucratic and antithetical to discipline in the schools that sorely need it.And the highly centralised system of checks and balances is also antithetical to the goals of the Hopkins Report, which wanted authority driven down to principals and individual schools, not trapped in a quasi-legal morass in the Ministry of Education.Discipline should be administered fairly and quickly. The current system ensures it is slow and always subject to second-guessing, which undermines the authority of teachers and principals.Dame Jennifer's other problem lies with her obligation as Minister to ensure that every child must be schooled. This can conflict with the responsibility of principals to ensure that their students are in an environment where there is discipline and where they are free from the distraction of out of control students.That's why the closure of the The Education Centre is so wrong-headed. At least students who were unable to function in a regular school environment could go there, at least until they could learn to operate under accepted standards. Then they could return to the school system, although possibly to a new school where they could get a fresh start.