No Frills Teaching Council Needed - PPTA

The Teaching Council needs to stick to its core business of registering and de-registering teachers, and investigating misconduct, says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president. Protection for quality for public education in NZ is of primary importance.

The Teaching Council has opened consultation this week on a proposal to increase practising certificate renewal fees from $464 to $501 for the next three years.

Chris Abercrombie said the proposal represented an 8% increase which the Council advise is the result of cost inflation as well as increased operating costs. One of those is the processing of thousands of overseas teaching applications.

Teaching Council explanations for the proposed fee increase include the fact the Government funding of additional staff to process overseas teachers’ applications would end in June. “The Government has deliberately chosen to hire overseas teachers to address teacher shortages, rather than ensuring an adequate supply of New Zealand teachers, so it should continue the funding of staff to process overseas applications for as long as it takes. There is no way the profession should be paying for this.”

Chris Abercrombie said it was National Party policy that teachers’ registration fees should be paid for by the government, and teachers supported this. “This will most likely be part of our claim in our collective agreement negotiations later this year.

“In the meantime, I would strongly encourage all teachers to have their say on the proposed fee increase.”

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