Editorial: Class sizes still affecting education

The issue of class sizes is back on the agenda for local teachers ahead of the annual Post Primary Teachers' Association conference.

While the teachers settled for better wages with the Government earlier this year, they continued to fight for better teaching conditions, including reduced class sizes. It would require extra funding to fix it, something our country currently does not have.

There's no official cap on class sizes in New Zealand. One might think there should be given the benefit to both teachers and students.

Some of our local teachers have more than 30 children in their class.

One teacher has told this newspaper that teachers' attention tends to be largely taken up by bright or struggling students so we can only presume those in between miss out. Does that mean they may later develop problems and/or fall through the cracks?

 

If teachers had smaller classes they would be able to offer more one-on-one time with all students which, it would follow, would see more of them engaged in schooling and fewer falling through the cracks. That would see fewer leaving school early and possibly becoming a burden on the taxpayer.

It seems so simple but the problem is that those areas where money would be saved currently need the funds they have so there isn't the extra government funding that might enable schools to keep classes to a manageable number.

This newspaper was told there is no compelling research showing class size affects educational outcomes but that it  affected workload and a teacher's ability to teach well. One might think that would affect educational outcomes _ research or no research.