Media Release
29 September 2009

Time to trust our teachers

Excessive compliance, a climate of mistrust and too little control over their working lives is undermining satisfaction levels for New Zealand secondary teachers, PPTA president Kate Gainsford says.

Gainsford told the 142 teachers gathered at PPTA’s 2009 annual conference that there was too much mistrust, too much bureaucracy and too little personal autonomy, when it came to secondary teaching in New Zealand.

“The fact is, we will continue to struggle to recruit teachers and will continue to burn out the ones we have, if we don’t recognise the importance of nurturing professional satisfaction. There is too much direction and surveillance and not enough intellectual freedom and creativity,” she said.

“How is it that the movers and shakers who run education can understand the principle that students work better when they are supported in their own learning, but they cannot grasp that the same principle actually applies to their teachers as well?

“If you trust teachers and give them time and space, good things will result,” she said.

Gainsford also spoke of the impact inequality in society has on schools.

“Where income is more unequally shared, all sorts of problems are much worse: levels of violent crime, imprisonment rates, infant mortality, mental illness, obesity, teenage births, school drop-out rates and rates of illiteracy.

“There is compelling evidence that a more equal society would help reduce problems in schools. This is recurrent issue for us.”

One of the papers that will be discussed during the three day conference, 80, 15, 5 percent: What we know; what they need, addresses those problems – by looking at the type of conduct disorders that can arise in schools. It resulted from last year’s annual conference, which lead in part to the holding of the Taumata Whanonga behaviour summit. The paper divides concerns between those that sit with schools and those that lie beyond schools in the community. This has been an escalating issue over several years.

“There needs to be recognition that dealing with difficult young people requires a range of government agencies to join together and work on the issues. This requires a sophisticated level of government and management. Intervention needs to be as early as possible,” she said.

Other papers that will be discussed at conference will be: Duty outside of timetabled hours, Housing affordability, Integration or disintegration?, Connected secondary schools and Mentoring for secondary teachers.

Gainsford also spoke against the proposed $50 million staffing cuts announced in the Budget. and was concerned that the government had chosen to continue implementation of the 1 to 15 ratio in primary school, against Treasury advice and at a cost of $100 million.

“You can’t have an educationally sound decision being paid for by an educationally unsound decision. Increases in student/teacher ratios in secondary schools, tampering with entitlement staffing, reducin non-contact time or any other of the nasty little schemes being considered, all fall into this category.

“There is no school in New Zealand that has more staff than it needs,” she said.

Should it become necessary, PPTA is prepared to run a public campaign opposing cuts to secondary staffing, Gainsford said.

“We would, of course, rather work with the government in thoughtful, considered and coherent change in education,” she said.

The PPTA annual conference is being held at the Brentwood Hotel in Kilbirnie Wellington and will run until Thursday October 2.

Media representatives are most welcome to attend – for those unable to, the conference will be webstreamed live at www.ppta.org.nz

The full text of the president’s speech is also available online at http://www.ppta.org.nz/index.php/annual-conference

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