Educators call for better funding this World Educators Day

Educators call for better funding this World Educators Day

27 October 2016

Teachers and support staff around New Zealand will be marching, rallying and gathering together on World Educators Day this Saturday (October 29) as part of a nationwide call for Better Funding, Better Learning for education.

"World Educators Day is a great opportunity to acknowledge the teachers and support staff who work with our children and are dedicated to ensuring kids get the best possible education," said NZEI president Louise Green, who'll be speaking at the event in Wellington.

"Most of the education budget is spent on people. It is people – teachers and support staff – who are at the heart of our world class education system.

"This World Educators Day we are calling for the Government to end its freeze on school operational funding and early childhood education funding (ECE) and to ditch its proposal for bulk funding," she said.

In its May Budget this year, the National Government froze the school operations grant, which pays for support staff and other school running costs, and failed to restore quality teacher funding in ECE which has had per-child funding frozen for the past six years.

Economics research institute, Infometrics, has estimated the freeze on operational funding will see school income reduced by 0.5% in real terms since 2015.

“We are very worried that the impact of the funding freeze will be to force schools to make awful trade-offs between cutting support staff hours and pay and other running costs.

“Children in early childhood education have already suffered the loss of qualified teachers, and resources as a result of funding freezes and bulk funding, and the last thing school children need is for the experiment to be repeated on them.

"The Government's radical funding proposals will lead to bigger class sizes, fewer teachers and less money for public education. This is why teachers and support staff have resoundingly rejected its bulk funding plans,” Ms Green said.

Details of events around the country can be found here.

ends

© Scoop Media