Support bill changes to keep students safe - PPTA

26 November 2014 www.ppta.org.nz

Support bill changes to keep students safe - PPTA

The government has the opportunity to prevent major teacher opposition to the proposed new teachers council by supporting changes to the Education Amendment Bill (2).

PPTA president Angela Roberts said one of the biggest risks of the new body was the danger in which its overly ambitious functions placed students by threatening its core business of keeping students safe.

Changes to the bill being proposed by the Green Party would create a democratic council focused on the core business of regulating entry to and exit from the teaching profession.

More than 1000 teachers made submissions against the government’s plan to create an entirely ministerially appointed new body called ‘EDUCANZ’ to regulate the teaching profession.

The new body as proposed by the government is supposed to provide leadership to the profession, identify and disseminate good teaching practice and audit schools’ internal practices and would be allowed to charge teachers compulsory fees to pay for these new roles.

“Teachers are comfortable with paying fees for the registration functions that all professions have, but compelling them to pay for an amorphous and ill-defined leadership role and a host of other functions will meet a lot of opposition,” Roberts said.

PPTA members will be considering all options in terms of non-cooperation with the new body, Roberts said.

“If the government proceeds it will have the power to charge us for functions we don’t want, duplicate roles of other education agencies and, to top it off, we would have no control over its membership.”

“Supporting the amendments the Green Party is introducing will fix the aspects of this bill which teachers are concerned about.”

“This would protect students by making sure that a new body focuses on its core business which is ensuring that only people fit to practise do so. It would put teachers on a similar footing to other professional groups such as doctors or lawyers,” she said.

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