Budget bombshell for Kaitaia Intermediate

 

Kaitaia Intermediate School principal Sue Arrell wasn't expecting particularly good news from last week's government budget, but nor was she expecting what she described as a bombshell.

"Savage" cuts to the staffing of intermediate schools would place the school in the unenviable position of choosing between abandoning its technology classes, which were used by pupils from other schools as well as those attending KIS, or keeping them by lifting other class sizes by 30 per cent or more.

"Currently, we receive staffing for our specialist subjects - food (cooking), soft materials (including sewing), hard materials (woodwork), electronics, information and communications technology (computers)," Ms Arrell said.

"This staffing will end as a result of the budget, meaning the loss of a number of teachers from our school.

"On the information we have now, we will lose at least four but it could be as many as six. Overall intermediate schools around the country will lose in the order of 880 teachers."

That reduction of four to six teachers in Kaitaia would be from a current teaching staff of 12.

"The choices we are faced with are horrendous," Ms Arrell added.

"We could have fewer mainstream and bilingual classes, and keep some technology teachers, but in order to do that we would have classes of 40 students.

"However you look at it we lose dedicated, hard-working teachers who care about providing the best education they can to children. In the light of the emphasis on science and technology that has been talked about at government levels, this is an incomprehensible decision."

She urged parents who, "like us," valued the programmes the school's specialist teachers were providing to make their feelings known to Northland MP Mike Sabin and the Prime Minister John Key.

"If this is not overturned quickly it will do great damage, not only to opportunities for our students but the education of all children as they move through the education system," she said.

The cuts would take effect at the beginning of next year, and would be felt beyond the gates of intermediate schools. Contributing schools would have no choice but to protect their own staffing levels, and from next year would also have to meet the cost of busing children to the intermediate for technology classes.

"It's just a crisis," Ms Arrell said.

"They haven't taken money out of education but they've shifted it around, and that's going to have huge consequences for everyone, not only teachers and pupils but our ancillary staff, the office staff, teacher aides and cleaners.

"There won't be any redundancy for the teachers we lose either. And who is going to decide who goes and who stays.

"They are ripping the heart out of intermediate education and opportunities for children."

Gary Sweeney, president of the New Zealand Association of Intermediate and Middle Schooling (NZAIMS), expressed similar concerns, although he put the likely loss of teachers nationally at more than 300.

He agreed that technology and specialist subjects for Year 7-8 children would be hit hard.

"This will have a huge impact on our schools," he said.

"It means principals will be faced with some very hard decisions about whether they can adequately resource these subjects. It will directly affect how they employ technology and other specialist subject teachers."

The "attack" on curriculum resourcing, he added, would be interpreted as a narrowing of the curriculum.

"It is becoming clear that the focus on national standards will be to the detriment of other very important aspects of learning and opportunities that generations of New Zealand children have previously enjoyed," Mr Sweeney said.