Teachers strike tomorrow
Members of the PPTA (Post Primary Teachers Association) will be going on strike tomorrow and I wanted to share the reasons why we are striking. Below are the things we are fighting for and why we are fight for them.
The Ministry of Education has rejected them all.
- We believe that as a country we must invest in our children’s education: Our claim looks beyond the recession and asks the Government to invest for the long term.
- We believe schools should be places of safe and effective teaching and learning:
- Research on class size shows significant positive effects of smaller class size. We worry about health and safety, behaviour and the limitations on practical work and teaching methods that come with large classes.
- We want schools resourced so classes can be limited to 30 students. In addition, we want classes in hazardous situations to have no more than 24 students to keep them safe.
- We believe that all of our schools should be able to appoint and retain well qualified and trained graduates: We want teaching to be a first choice career.
- New Zealand teachers are sought after internationally for their success with students and hundreds go to teach overseas each year. Despite the recession, one in 10 secondary teaching jobs advertised in the first term of this year were not filled.
- Salary rates set now will determine whether our schools are left short of teachers as the economy recovers. We think that an increase of 4% balances the long term needs of schools with the temporary economic position. It is also within the range of recent teacher pay increases in comparable overseas countries.
- We believe that the students should have the benefit of teachers who are up to date: We ask the Government to invest in professional development so that we can improve outcomes for students. We seek the inclusion of good professional learning guidelines in our agreement.
- We believe that teachers should get a fair go: We are very lucky at many of our schools – our laptops and annual flu vaccinations are funded by the school. Others are not so fortunate. We are asking that all schools pay the lease on the laptops that are provided to teachers for their work-related duties and fund annual flu vaccinations for teachers.