Extra teachers to tackle class 'bulge'

Trevor Mallard

More than 400 new teachers will be channelled into classes for 13- and 14-year-olds in a bid to drive down bulging class sizes.

A report two months ago revealed that more than a third of class sizes were "unsuitable", with years nine and 10 averaging 25.2 students a class.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard said yesterday that the target ratio would be reduced to one teacher to 23.5 students.

Under the plan the teachers, already budgeted for, will be re-directed from low socio-economic areas with staff shortages to years nine and 10 in all schools.

However the Post-Primary Teachers Association fears that poor schools could suffer in the long term.

Mr Mallard said the move was designed to "alleviate the workload pressures" exposed in the June report, which blamed the NCEA system for much of the burden on secondary school teachers.

The report, produced by the association, surveyed more than 1000 teachers and 4600 classes nationwide. Class sizes varied from 42 to just one, with teachers saying they feared the problem was jeopardising education.

At the time Mr Mallard said there would be no more money for extra teachers. Yesterday he said that 421 teaching positions, announced in Budget 2005 at a cost of about $90 million, would be directed to years nine and 10 to reduce class sizes.

Substantial extra funding had already been provided to low-decile schools through the decile-weighted components of operational funding.

But PPTA president Debbie Te Whaiti said low-decile schools "have students with needs and behaviours that are more complex, with more issues involved, and this changes the base-line staffing to regard them the same as higher-decile schools".

She was also sceptical as to how the allocation would work in practice, with schools themselves having the final say in class sizes.

Mr Mallard said that would not change. "Although the staffing is allocated as specific staffing components, school boards have the flexibility to use it as they see fit."

Despite the pitfalls, Ms Te Whaiti said the PPTA was supportive of the response to its report, which showed 36.5 per cent of classes were "unsuitable". In most cases they were too large for the space, teaching method, ability level, or needs of the students.

Almost 10 per cent of all classes had more than 30 students - five more than the prescribed maximum average class size.

The new teachers are due to be in schools for the start of the next academic year.

Ms Te Whaiti said schools also had a responsibility to balance classes and not to offer specific courses simply to compete with surrounding schools.