Teachers to meet over Novopay and agreement

Teachers from throughout Wairarapa are to meet in Carterton to discuss Novopay and their collective agreement, says Beryl Thomson, Wairarapa branch president of the New Zealand Education Institute.

Mrs Thomson said the meeting would be held at the Carterton Events Centre from 1.30pm on March 20 and comes after the Ministry of Education rejected NZEI proposals ratified at meetings held across the country late last year.

She said the upcoming meeting would focus on safeguarding the provision of "quality education for our children".

Pay rates would be discussed but were only a "small component" of the agenda.

"It's really not about the pay or making things better for ourselves, as such, it's about making things better for the kids."

NZEI lead organiser Denise Cornford said thousands of primary teachers would be meeting this month to discuss "important issues in public education", including progress on their collective agreement negotiations and their response to the Novopay debacle.

"Teachers will be looking at the claims put up by the Ministry of Education, which NZEI believes threaten New Zealand's quality public education system," she said.

"The ministry's claims would advance the Global Education Reform agenda which invites competition rather than collaboration, more inequity in schools and communities, and leads to standardisation in learning rather than meeting an individual's needs."