Kim Fulton's article "Tough times for teachers discourage new recruits" mentions many real and important problems that adversely affect the young people of New Zealand. As I kept pointing out in my decade as a maths and physics teacher in New Zealand state schools, pay is not the problem.
Sure, we'd all like to make a bigger salary, but the pay is adequate.
The problem is the working conditions. Class sizes are much too large (for 21st-century students; numbers that worked in the 1950s don't work now) and far too much abusive behaviour is tolerated by school administrators and boards.
Also, of course, there will always be a shortage of good and/or qualified maths and science teachers as long as the Ministry of Education and the Teachers Council continue to alienate and drive away the best teachers.
Colonel Bob Jones
Okaihau, Bay of Islands
