Teacher's pay is adequate but classes are often too large, says a reader.
Teacher's pay is adequate but classes are often too large, says a reader.
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.
