“The latest lunacy from the Ministry of Education - that teachers cannot restrain students unless they are specifically trained to - could be a satire of why New Zealand is struggling right now,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“You cannot make this up. An overgrown Wellington bureaucracy, check. Making unworkable rules, check. That treats the teaching profession like kids, check. Making sure badly behaved kids face no consequences, check. Wasting everyone’s time and making New Zealand less productive, check.

“The Education and Training Act already says that students cannot be restrained unless they are an imminent threat to themselves or other people. I’ve visited schools where kids destroy property, and the teachers cannot stop them. It’s insane.

“The latest addition, that only specifically trained teachers can restrain a student, is insane. As one Principal has already said, if there’s a fight on the field, should the teacher present say, ‘one minute, kids, I’ll get the teacher who’s done the course?’ These bureaucrats don’t live in the real world.

“We can only guess that the course is a total waste of time. What could a teacher possibly learn about restraining a kid. People are allowed to have their own children and restrain them now, they’ve been doing it for thousands of years, but the Ministry of Education knows more. We predict the course will be about complying with Ministry paperwork than the actual restraint. Bureaucracy is self-reinforcing.

“If you ever wondered what 4,000 bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education do, here’s your answer. They concoct rubbish like this and dump it on the profession. Last month it was the common practice model for teaching critical maths that said 'A critical maths pedagogical approach uses maths to develop critical awareness about wider social, environmental, political, ideological, and economic issues,’ this week they are being restrained from restraining kids unless they do another pointless course.

“The most significant effect will be the total lack of consequences for kids. They know ‘you cannot touch me’ you can’t do anything about me. Kids grow up thinking there is no such thing as cause and effect, action and consequence, and people wonder why youth crime is out of control.

“The only thing that needs to be restrained is New Zealand’s burgeoning and expensive bureaucracy. ACT would apply common sense to education. The Teachers are in charge, and kids need to be good or stay out of their way."

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