More teachers but bureaucracy means less teaching: English

Teachers are spending more time having to deal with the Government's growing burden of bureaucracy in schools, National Party education spokesman Bill English says.

His comments follow figures issued by the Government yesterday showing that the number of teaching positions has increased by more than school roll growth in the past five years.

The figures showed an extra 2689 full-time equivalent teaching positions had been created.

This is an increase of 6.6 per cent, compared to an increase of 4.4 per cent in school rolls.

"The hard reality is that students aren't getting much more teaching time," said Mr English in a statement yesterday.

Teachers were having less contact with students and school weeks had been shortened because of the bureaucracy which Labour was putting in place, Mr English said.

"Helen Clark's Government has spent more money beefing up the Ministry of Education, than it has beefing up school budgets.

"This means there are simply more bureaucrats creating work for teachers which takes them away from their students," Mr English said.

Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope said yesterday that the figures demonstrated the Government's commitment to raising education standards.

"Research shows quite clearly that regardless of a student's background, quality teachers can and do make the biggest difference to student achievement," he said in the statement.

"By putting more teachers in our schools, improving the support for new teachers starting out, and increasing what we pay our teachers, we are clearly signalling the importance we place on improving the education of young New Zealanders."

- NZPA