An education consultant says a number of teachers are underqualified - especially primary school teachers in maths and science.. Photo / CDC, Unsplash, File
An education consultant says a number of teachers are underqualified - especially primary school teachers in maths and science.. Photo / CDC, Unsplash, File
Opinion by Alwyn Poole
OPINION
I normally welcome support for teachers and education but I think the public is being misled and the situation in education in New Zealand is so much worse than a pay rise can even begin to fix.
The unions have been a huge part of the problem.
The Governmentand Ministry of Education have made generous offers that well exceed what is deserved if you match it against the performance of our schools and broad system.
The main problem for most union teachers is that the offer is weighted for new teachers. It should also be noted that unions keep asking for class-size decreases. Schools are funded by student numbers but set their own class sizes.
A very significant number of our teachers are underqualified - especially primary school teachers in maths and science. A significant number of our teachers also do not work particularly hard and do enjoy the full 12-week holidays. These teachers are a huge drain on the rest of the sector and their negative effect on students and their families is profound.
A strike is the worst kind of protest in the current situation where the Covid-response, lockdowns, the vaccine mandate, teacher-only days, storms, and a complete loss of confidence in the system has less than 50 per cent of students fully attending (just over 20 per cent for the most needy).
A strike just adds to the cynicism. The school sector has simply lost the room and it may never come back.
Teacher unions flatly refuse performance evaluations and pretend they are all the same.
The Ministry of Education refuses to do a 360-degree review about its performance but has gone from 2700 bureaucrats to over 4000 while our education outcomes decline. It offers nothing in terms of improving qualifications and performance.
At least 150 out of 410 high schools in New Zealand are demonstrably failing. How do you justify pay rises in those situations? Why not fund schools on attendance rather than a mythical roll number?
Alwyn Poole. Photo / Supplied
I recently made 13 recommendations in a collaborative report on the New Zealand high-school system.
These included establishing a Crown agency for “parenting” to provide information to make New Zealand the very best parenting country on the planet; split the collective contract in two and super-fund/incentivise teaching in former decile 1-4 schools; simplify the NZ curriculum (dumping the current “refresh”) and align with the international highest standards; be honest about results and also provide value-added/progression measures; stop talking about University Entrance and call it a true level of high-school graduation; and devise a designated character school policy/process (not Charter Schools) to allow for schools to develop that suit the non-cooker cutter kids.
Further, I recommended draining the swamp, finding the right people to lead the Ministry of Education, and fully repurposing it to serve the sector effectively and with accountability; dealing quickly and effectively with the union demands - after the next election; having input and achievement goals for every high school; mimic success by working out the schools in each EQI range that is excelling and making them “lighthouse schools”; encourage public discourse from all of our school principals; move away from the “stop kids falling through the cracks” mentality to an aspirational one; and provide high-quality afterschool care.
Collectively, these recommendations outweigh anything the unions are proposing - but they would tolerate few of them - and would strike again and again, I presume.
I am deeply ashamed that at least one of the schools I founded is putting their kids on the street today (or costing the parents a day of annual leave).
High-achieving schools such as Mt Hobson Academy Connected, Manukura, Auckland Grammar, many of the Catholic Schools, etc, are open and thriving today and their students get one more day ahead of the union-dominated schools.
- Alwyn Poole operates Innovative Education Consultants. He was founder and principal of Mt Hobson Middle School and the Villa NCEA Academy in Newmarket, Auckland for the first 18 years.
