Dialogue: Teachers present Mallard with a poisoned chalice

Striking secondary school teachers are making contract
demands that no responsible Government could possibly
agree to, writes BRIAN DONNELLY*.

There is no group outside the Labour Party itself that is so fervently pro-Labour as the Post Primary Teachers Association. Over decades it has encouraged its members to vote Labour and has been stridently opposed to the parties of the right.

It is therefore ironic that the first big industrial stand-off this Government is facing is against the secondary school teachers.

The PPTA is justified in its concerns about teacher workload and teacher supply. Its rhetoric about the seriousness of these is closer to reality than the Government's scenario. The workload issue is, however, a complex one. Teaching has always been a demanding job.

Back in the mid-1980s, when I was the principal of a rural school, I asked my staff to keep a diary for two weeks. The results were that the teachers had worked between 43 and 72 hours a week, with an average of 55. The job has become far more demanding since then.

The workload issue is a genuine one. However, workload is not created only by Government expectations but also by the community, parents, the board of trustees, school administration and teacher expectations.

Many teachers voluntarily commit themselves to tasks beyond the call of duty through their own enthusiasm and unselfishness. The job description of a teacher is vague and leads to infinite possibilities for engagement.

The PPTA is making claims to resolve the workload through its collective contract, to which no responsible Government could agree.

The first is for a $2500 additional payment for every teacher for the next three years to compensate for the extra workload that teachers will have to carry in the implementation of the new qualification system, the National Certificate for Educational Achievement.

Let's make no bones about it: the implementation of any new system, such as the certificate, is going to create a huge amount of additional work for some teachers.

In the 1990s a one-off payment was claimed for the introduction of unit standards and at that time secondary principals complained how unfair it was. As they put it, some staff had made vast commitments of time and energy to this work and some had done nothing. Yet all were to receive the same reward.

The same consequence will occur with this claim. The workloads of technology teachers in intermediate schools will not be affected by the new certificate but they will still receive the extra payment.

The primary teachers in intermediate schools, teaching the same children as those technology teachers and equally unaffected by the certificate, will not receive it. However, those teaching a year 7 or 8 class in a forms 1 to 7 school will receive it.

The inequality that such a claim will create is further compounded by the area schools. They have students from new entrants to Year 13. Teachers are not considered as either primary or secondary teachers but as area schoolteachers. They have a separate contract which treats all teachers in them the same.

If secondary teachers receive this payment, the Government will have to pay it to area schoolteachers. That means the new entrant teacher in an area school will receive $2500 a year more than the new entrant teacher at the primary school down the road. The concept of pay parity will be totally shattered and the New Zealand Educational Institute will be breathing dragon's fire down Trevor Mallard's neck.

The second part of the claim at the centre of the dispute is the demand for guaranteed non-contact time. This represents the hours teachers must spend on preparation and other activities away from the demands of their students.

Those who understand the intricacies of staff deployment within a school will know the nightmare for school administrations such a rigid strait-jacket would create.

Teaching workload is determined by the nature of the area of the curriculum taught, the numbers of students in the class, the level of a maturity of the class and a range of other variables.

School administrators worth their salt take these factors into consideration when setting timetables. If the PPTA claim is agreed to, this would severely restrict options available for administrators and is likely to end in a reduction in the range of courses offered within a school.

There is also the matter of teachers filling in for others who might, for example, be out of the school taking students on a sports field or a cultural trip. Someone has to supervise the scheduled classes of the out-of-school teacher. This is often done by other teachers who have no scheduled classes.

If the PPTA claim is won, such time-honoured practices will be threatened - "I've already got my maximum contact hours for the week. You cannot ask me to supervise Mary's class."

The PPTA needs to take heed of the lesson from the demise of Ansett. It was just this sort of fixed formula in staffing schedules which helped to bring that airline to its knees. It also needs to realise that these hard-headed demands linked to militant industrial actions spawned the Treasury's desire for bulk-funding of teachers' salaries.

The Minister of Education has been put into a position where he cannot possibly agree to the PPTA's demands. He has been hoist by his own petard.

Meanwhile, students are missing out because of industrial action designed to maximise disruption to senior students facing examinations. If the PPTA was genuine, it would roster off senior classes after examinations are over.

There are ways through this impasse but they will not happen if the parties remain intransigent. The minister has been handed the chalice. If he drinks from it, he is doomed. He has to be prepared to pour out the contents, refill the cup with a sweeter wine and hand it back to the PPTA.

* Brian Donnelly, a New Zealand First MP, is a former Associate Minister of Education.