The average NZer is a 5’6” hermaphrodite – PPTA

The average NZer is a 5’6” hermaphrodite – PPTA

Education minister Anne Tolley is misleading and mischievous in her use of statistics – particularly when it comes to teachers’ salaries, PPTA president Kate Gainsford says.

A small part of the secondary teacher’s claim is about pay, yet the minister is very vocal on this issue – while avoiding discussing issues of overlarge classes, unsafe classrooms or any of the professional issues teachers have raised, many of which are low or no cost items, she said.

Tolley has been particularly active in floating a range of figures including that the average secondary teacher wage is $70,000, Gainsford said.

“This is blatant misinformation - the starting salary for a secondary teacher with four years training is $45,000 and if those teachers pass an annual appraisal based on professional performance standards, they can progress to the sum of $68,000. You do not have to be a maths teacher to see that no matter how hard you try you cannot get an average of $70,000 from those figures.

“Tolley is playing with figures - using the same spotty logic you could amalgamate height and gender data of all New Zealanders and say the average New Zealander was 5’6” and a hermaphrodite,” she said.

The minister grasped desperately at a single example from Ireland where teachers had recently taken a pay cut, however she failed to point out that, even with a pay cut, Irish teachers are still paid 10% more than New Zealand secondary teachers.

“PPTA’s 4% claim would not catch us up with OECD countries - that would require an immediate 17% increase just to get to the average OECD salary rate – it is about stopping us from falling even further behind. The minister is prepared to allow a secondary teacher supply crisis to grow when she could prevent it. There is a yawning chasm between the rhetoric and the reality of what the government is proposing for secondary education in this country,” she said.

ENDS

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