Steven Joyce, the minister in charge of Novopay, says debt collections have ceased following revelations teachers were being chased for overpayments as low as $22.

Kidicorp's CFO Bruce Woodward has been convicted of tax evasion and perjury, but is keeping his job at the daycare centre chain.

A Far North teacher who abused young boys will make another appearance in court today.

The Novopay debacle has hit a new low, with revelations the payroll company and debt collectors are chasing teachers for overpayments as low as $22.

More than 350 young people have signed on as building apprentices since a $2000 bonus became available last Wednesday for the first 10,000 apprentices who sign up.

The Ministry of Education is using debt collectors to retrieve money overpaid to teachers in error by the Novopay system.

At the heart of this model of school is a binding, legally enforceable contract with the Crown, writes Catherine Isaac. "No teacher will be forced to teach at one of these schools and no student will be forced to enrol in one."

The minister responsible for the troubled Novopay teacher payroll system says there is a shortage of skilled people to help fix it.

All eight of New Zealand's universities are being taken to the New Zealand Copyright Tribunal for refusing to agree to an increased annual licence fee which allows lecturers to copy authors' work for students.

Does the experience of lecturing university undergraduates prepare teachers adequately to teach children and adolescents? Dr Peter Lind gives his view.

Prime Minister John Key says compensation to schools to halt legal action over the Novopay system is a possibility, if the teacher unions would agree to a package.

Kids at Kamo Primary School at the northern end of Whangarei are split down the middle over an offer of free milk from New Zealand's biggest company, Fonterra.

Schoolchildren have got worse at basic arithmetic skills since the introduction of new teaching methods designed to lift the country's poor performance in maths.

Weekend Herald stories about how children learn maths at school have prompted a flood of responses from readers and experts. Andrew Laxon explains what the argument is about.

Regional polytechnics are important to their communities, and the National-led government is underfunding them, two Labour politicians say.

A Wanganui fireman is now heading the country's firefighters union and says he wants to develop much closer and clearer relationships with the Fire Service on his watch.

A Masterton father accused of failing to ensure his 15-year-old daughter attended school says his family has been put through hell and his wife had a nervous breakdown.

Prime Minister John Key has defended the $425,000 payout of former Education Secretary Lesley Longstone after a year's service, saying it was the "bare minimum".

Young New Zealanders are at a huge disadvantage to Australian and European students because so few are learning a second or third language.

Former Education Secretary Lesley Longstone received a $425,475 payout after her resignation at the end of last year, it has been revealed.

Novopay Minister Steven Joyce says there is "a wider range of villains" behind the troubled payroll system than the National MPs whose offices are being picketed today.

In a positive development for Dunedin's tertiary education industry, Otago Polytechnic predicts higher student numbers later this year.

Oh-kayyyy. So Mike Williams, a former Labour Party president, calls parents who try to get their kids into higher decile schools "dumb", writes Deborah Hill Cone.