Primary and area school principals across Aotearoa New Zealand have overwhelmingly rejected a second offer from the Ministry of Education to settle their collective employment agreement and voted to pursue further action.

The principals, all of whom are members of NZEI Te Riu Roa, confirmed the results on Friday after a week of face-to-face and online meetings across the motu.

“It was apparent that many of our colleagues were far from impressed with the government’s offer,” said Lynda Stuart and Ripeka Lessels, who lead the negotiation teams for primary and area school principals respectively.

“Much of what was discussed centred around how it failed to recognise the complexity of a principal’s job, and did not acknowledge the need for more support and staffing to ensure our school leaders can do their jobs more effectively.”

Negotiations for the new agreement started in the middle of last year, with area and primary school principals rejecting a first offer from the government, who sent a second offer for consideration just before Christmas.

Principals voted to pursue further action following the second rejection.

“The feeling was strong that we needed to do something going forward for the government to recognise our concerns,” Mrs Lessels said.

“The time for the government to act is now, because they will be hearing from us more loudly and clearly in the next few weeks.”

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