Letters: Ministry of Education staff should do refresher courses

Ministry of Education staff should do refresher courses, a reader says.

In reply to Jim McTamney ( Letters, February 16), I have long believed that Ministry of Education staff, like staff in private enterprise, should have to undertake "refresher" courses at regular intervals in order to stay "on top of their game".

The courses would take the form of two weeks fulltime as a classroom teacher, and would include lesson and resource preparation, assessment, reassessment, data entry and significant amounts of social work.

I have always felt certain that, at the conclusion of such a course, officials would return to their policy-making with a greatly enhanced understanding of what today's student is actually like, and of what works best for him or her in terms of learning.

And that would not be, in very many cases indeed, double-sized classroom with multiple teachers, "self-directed" learning, huge use of technology just for the sake of it, a curriculum with a disproportionate gender or race bias.

Just think of all the money that could be saved if schools were not forced to implement massively costly MOE "initiatives" that are based on educational theory. The savings could be used to pay teachers a competitive salary. End of the teacher shortage.

Alison Richards
Otumoetai

Traffic jams

I went into town the other day as I needed to clear my Post Office box in Grey St.

I don't go in every day as I don't get many letters any more. It's mostly digital these days.

Driving up Elizabeth St, the first thing you notice is the queue to turn right on to Cameron Rd.

Everything from there on is stop-start, stop-start, crawl 20 metres, wait to go around the parked truck, stop-start while watching the opposite lane doing the same thing.

It took 10 minutes from entering Elizabeth St to the Grey St shop. And then I couldn't find a park.

So I turned left to get out of the place but couldn't get into Durham St let alone through it.

So I did a U-turn and went around to Wharf St, where I finally found a way out.

It's been almost two weeks since I last cleared my Post Office mailbox.

I'll try an early Saturday morning attempt this weekend.

Graeme Martin
Tauranga

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