I think the Teacher Unions may well have over played their hand here with news of a general strike next week.
The backlash by exhausted parents worried about their kids failing educationally will be very damaging to the goodwill the teaching profession has.
In turn, the Government has to do everything it can to settle this now so that the strike doesn’t go ahead.
That said, let’s be completely honest – all that is being asked for and all that is being offered are band-aids to haemorrhaging problems in education.
Teachers deserve 4 day weeks + more pay + extra resources + a teacher’s aid in each class + provide bonded scholarships with accomodation for new teachers!
Teachers work miracles with our kids, there are few silver bullets in social policy, education is one of them.
We need to nurture an education environment that respects Teachers and resources them properly because our Schools are central hubs within our community that can and must be utilised and supported more.
That takes far more money, that takes a Government with the courage to tax the fucking rich more so that excellent public education continues to be the egalitarian pillar of New Zealand.
Striking for band aids that don’t go anywhere towards the required solutions seems so limited and shallow.
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Nah! Look at their incompetence for the last 20 years! The doctrine for the fascist wokeratti mental kids that they have taught! They need sacking!
Idiot!
No teachers, no nurses, no cops… will be fucking awesome. Let’s douche this.
Is it still true that a teacher at the top of the basic scale – not sure what the figure is nowadays – earns about half that of a basic MP?
Yet worth double.
Bay of Plenty Times, 11 march
Ministry of Education Employment Relations and Pay Equity general manager Mark Williamson said the offer that NZEI members had rejected so far provided “significant increases”.
“For example, teachers at the top of the scale would earn $96,820 after eight years teaching.”
So – how much does a first year, bog standard MP earn, plus perks and expenses?
And it takes 7 or 8 years for a teacher to get to the top of the basic scale.
For who? Or are you agreeing with the right-wing media shrills?
‘excellent public education’ does not exist in nz. Come on Martin. It’s woeful. Let’s start with some honesty.
Private schooling is unaffordable, it creates a them and us divide. In my experience those whom had private schooling have a massive sense of entitlement about them.
Chippy will meet their demands it’s election year.
Yes let’s give everyone everything they want. It’s the right wing way. Farmers, trucking companies and multi millionaire National party donors. There, fixed, that will win the right the election.
The Minister of Education has had coal face experience of being a teacher and principal so would seem to be a good choice for the role .I wonder what Kelvin Davis brings to the table as none of his portfolio’s seem to be doing well .
I think many parents will be on the side of the teachers as they know the effort and sacrifice they made over the last three years. They know their children do not learn much when day after day they come home after being controlled by another temporary teacher. I say control because they cannot teach if they are just temporary fill ins.
The wheels are falling off this failing government as medical staff say they cannot go on much longer and only 186 new nurses have been attracted from oversea in the last year with many more leaving the profession or going to Australia.
The next poll will show how people react to all the bad news. Luxon may not be mister popularit but his message is one of hope.
Kelvin Davis is a tragedy, what has he accomplished?
“None of Kelvin Davis’ portfolios seem to be doing well”?
He’s the Minister of Corrections, Minister of Maori-Crown relations, and Minister for Children.
Pray tell, specifically what should he do that he isn’t doing?
Corrections is understaffed by 400 at the last count and prisoners cannot have visitors or get onrehabilitation courses
Maori co government will possibly be the last straw for many floating voters
Children 180000 in poverty .No oversight by children’s commissioner due to Labour policy
Failure x 3
Charter Schools worked that’s why they had to be shut. The union couldn’t have competition. The education system
in NZ used to be world class and the many students from it went on to achieve great things. What we have today is a train wreck with 100,000’s of kids barely attending if they attend at all. A secondary school model that is a joke and doesn’t set kids up for success either in the work force or Uni – NCEA is worthless vs. the Cambridge exams.
What we’ve got instead is a jumble of woke nonsense coupled to a disaster of low expectations for all kids.
The teachers will strike as it’s in their interests to do so and the union represents their interests only. Parents will complain but Wellington will roll over and pay those setting off a firestorm of pay rises.
We will end up with the same shit education system and ever more poorly educated young adults. We just get to pay more for it.
That’s a winner
Sadly we have so many more feral children, Maori mostly – this is a fact. Let alone the many more non-english speaking children now expected to be taught. An impossible job. Eleven languages in one I know of.
Valery Coulson did i read your comment correctly?? quote “Maori feral children “. For shame , call me woke I don’t care. This is a disgusting comment actually the whole of your comment was “feral”
Investors of Charter Schools are only after one thing – profits. ie take another look at Early Childhood situation. Guaranteed Government money ie Taxpayers. Bought all they could, choked off individual providers.
Please provide evidence that “charter schools worked”.
Double shot, evidence and the Spinoff…
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/18-05-2017/charter-schools-the-case-for
Charter Schools worked that’s why they had to be shut?
How do you know they ‘worked’? How do you know they worked worked better than the other schools in my community, the assorted primary, intermediate and secondary schools?
If the education system in NZ used to be world class, was world class, how come it seems to have produced so many narrow-minded, mutton-headed, ignorant bigots incapable of being objective ?
Those mutton headed people were probate ones who objected to cater schools .I can only talk of the one my friend was involved with which had a military style system and it worked for their child who had has a rough time in conventional school.
Schools like most thinks need a variety of choices ..
From my observations one of the biggest hurdle for normal public schools are the children suffering with a range of complaints that make them difficult but are not resourced ft help with their special needs . Originally when the special needs schools were close and the children were integrated it was promised they would be resourced but like all political promises by both sides those promises were broken
Still trying to make sense of your post Peter? If you are a product of Charter schools and English, then Charter schools were an abject failure, just like America .
Ahh my mistake Peter, apologies, charter schools failed because they were private schools needing public money, end of debate.
Yes.
schools for the privileged paid for by everybody else was never going to last long.
Morning Peter, here’s a question. If it were the case that charter schools were not working why were the Teachers Unions so opposed to them? We see some educationally ambitious families scrimp and save to be able to move into specific school zones to be able to send their kids to what they perceive as better schools, think Auckland Grammar.
If charter schools weren’t working why were they often oversubscribed? No parents were being forced to send their children there but given a choice some chose to try a different approach. Lotteries are used overseas to allocate places.
Is it possible that a one size fits all approach isn’t actually great for our children amongst whom there are many different learning styles, abilities and personalities?
Is it possible that the unions and their parliamentary hatchet man Chippy himself had to do all they could to shut down a threat to their monopoly power and the union funding of Labour?
There were hardly any charter schools but they all had to go – isn’t it a shame that they weren’t given an opportunity to find new and different ways of educating our children?
Imagine an outcome where with engagement from the Min Ed to outline a curriculum, minimum standards etc that a charter school helps to develop and graduate children with higher grades. What’s the worst that could happen? I don’t know, the next generation might be better educated, smarter and set up to deal with an uncertain future
But hey, let’s not try that. No, let’s just keep the unions happy whilst our school system slowly collapses and keeps those who follow us and who will one day be in charge less educated than they could be.
If people choose private schools over public schools then that’s their decision which they’re entitled to.
Yes, thank you Bob, they have a sense of entitlement about them, as I said earlier.
MOST of the anti teacher mob are people who resent having to warehouse their own kids for a day, and the disruption that will cause to their routine….well di dums
I think a line of ‘all strikers are bolshevik wreckers’ might not work, in the UK the strikers get a better public reaction than they have in the past…mick lynch
Go the Teachers!
Down with the Government
Go the Teachers!
Down with the Government
If the government can waste billions on groveling doctor recruitment, worthless inoculations and slash consultants, instead of spending on essentials like infrastructure and the people (we mere mortals), teachers may as well go full truant and try to extort as much as they can from them. The kids might learn a thing or two.
“Teachers work miracles with our kids”
Yet again your rhetoric doesn’t match the substance. Education outcomes continue to decline. Teachers and parents are both slacking.
A small % of teacher s, probably 40% are very good and deserve a pay rise/ to be paid well. The rest, I hate to say it but are basically useless. And they have the audicity to stand on picket lines protesting.
No wonder home schooling is so popular.
The real problem is the Ministry of Education which is full of woke idiots and the Teaching Council ditto.
Don’t blame the teachers – they are better qualified than the woke bureaucrats anyway!
Better qualified than the former Minister of Education,Chippy.
Evidence Bob?
It’s in front of you
That you’re a knob, yes Bob we can all see that, now back to the evidence re the better qualified comment. OH YOU DON’T HAVE ANY!
Well there’s a surprise.
The frequency which teachers strike makes me wonder when enough is enough and how long till they strike again.
Frequency? Please verify.
You imagine the situation is static? That it hasn’t been under-resourced and underpaid for decades, and each settlement isn’t the teachers being reasonable and relenting instead of sticking to it?
The strike should roll and roll. Unfortunately true strikes were broken with the advent of the double income economy. We became a country of serfs unable to sustain ourselves from our own effort. We need to stop the top end thinking they deserve the surplus wealth created by our economy when out country can’t even pay its health and education bills.
Go the Teachers!
Down with the Government, and their supporting media partners
Well according to NZ’s brilliant and enlightened education system, I am officially mentally retarded and have the intelligence of a 10 year old, and will never be able to read and write.
The fact that a private school managed to teach me how to read and to write, and then to get into university shows, from my perspective, that we have an issue with NZ’s public school system and also the attitude of NZ’s teacher unions.
They write children off, then get indignant when proven to be wrong, and double down on their original assessment of the child. Ideology over fact every time. I still, to this day, feel the wounds inflicted on me, by woke middle class teachers in public school.
The only teachers who believed in me were those teachers in private institutions.
Actually Terry many children fail the school system when they are young. It’s almost as if its too early for them to learn in an organized environment. Many children learn much better when they are older. There are many thousands of adult learners who gain degrees and job qualifications in later life. The public education or any system can only do so much for any child.
So, Teachers should settle with the 1% (Cabinet Ministers)? – Nope!