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The union for primary school teachers has defended its use of half-day stopwork meetings to discuss industrial negotiations.
National Party education spokesman Bill English has criticised the meetings, which will take place over the next three weeks.
He said they forced working parents to either pay for childcare or leave their children at home unsupervised.
The Government and unions should take into account the cost and disruption to parents when negotiating more time off for teachers.
Mr English said teachers had a legitimate right to discuss employment matters, but he questioned whether there were any current issues that warranted national stopwork meetings.
NZ Educational Institute president Irene Cooper said yesterday that the meetings were necessary to discuss progress on developing teachers' "career pathways".
The pathways were part of a programme between the union, the Education Ministry and school trustees.
"We want to make sure our teachers know what's happening, what is proposed, because the proposals are significant for changes to their career paths and will affect every teacher," Ms Cooper said on National Radio.
Teachers are allowed to hold half-day stopwork meetings twice a year, but have not exercised that right since 2004.
Ms Cooper said boards should have notified parents at least two weeks in advance of the meeting so they could make alternative arrangements.
Where arrangements could not be made most schools would supervise those children within their normal hours.
- NZPA
