If there was any doubt that National has an anti-teacher, anti-education agenda, it’s gone. Increasing class sizes will ‘save’ $43m a year by reducing the number of teachers that would otherwise be required by 500. National standards will be used for performance pay. It’s a cut to the frontline, a cut to our kids’ learning. And Parata’s comments suggest more to come.
It’s pretty simple, really. The ‘saving’ from larger class sizes is all in wages. $43m is just over 1% of education’s wage bill. There are 50,000 teachers. If you got your education under Labour, you can see that’s a cut of 500 teachers against the status quo.
Parata pretended she couldn’t see that, of course. She gave a performance unworthy of her ministerial warrant on Checkpoint as she transparently attempted to evade the issue. But she gave away the game when she said the number of teachers would be static for the next four years. Pupil numbers increase about 1% a year, and so would teacher numbers normally. That implies a 500 fewer jobs each year – 2000 fewer over four years.
Parata has done an awful job trying to sell this (she has just admitted on Morning Report that the entire purpose of national standards is performance pay).
Parents won’t be happy that there will be hundreds or thousands fewer teachers for their children, or that their kids will be tested specifically to determine their teachers’ pay.
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