Labour promises 3000 teachers

Labour is pledging to provide an extra 3000 teachers by 2007.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard said yesterday that he hoped the extra 3000 would be in place by 2006, and the 2007 date was a commitment.

The number would be divided roughly equally between primary and secondary sectors.

Outlining a set of policy initiatives for the next three years, he said New Zealand needed higher literacy and numeracy levels, more children staying in the education system longer and more in early childhood education. "Work in our first term has been around policies to reverse the market-rules focus of the 1990s and establishing the foundation for a fairer and more secure education system," he said.

"During our second term we will build on those foundations. Implementing the recommendations of the school staffing review group will mean 3000 extra teachers, above roll growth by 2006-07."

Labour would continue to focus on early childhood education, which Mr Mallard described as one of the hardest yet most important areas of education policy.

Gifted and talented students would get more support, and teachers would be offered an accelerated student loan repayment system as an alternative to government subsidies on superannuation contributions.

During the next term the Government would aim to improve staff-child ratios in the early childhood area and reduce group sizes by 2006.

Another of his targets was to ensure all staff in early childhood centres were qualified and registered teachers by 2012.

Mr Mallard said the Ministry of Education would be given responsibility for mapping the network of early childhood services and planning future provision.

"More and more research is showing that participating in quality early childhood education positively affects a child for the rest of their life," he said.

Other policy aspects outlined were:

* Extending the early numeracy project 2001 to all year 1 to 3 students.

* Expanding the use of literacy and numeracy assessment tools to years 8, 9 and 10.

* Establishing a central records database to track children's attendance at school.

* Working with teacher organisations to define areas of skill and knowledge needed for registration. These would include knowledge in literacy and numeracy teaching, special and gifted education.

The Post Primary Teachers Association said the policies were "deafeningly silent" on the most pressing issues in education - secondary teacher recruitment and retention and the new national qualifications.

"There is no mention of how it [Labour] specifically intends to address the rapidly rising tide of secondary teachers being lost to the system," said PPTA president Jen McCutcheon.

- NZPA

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