Latest news with #PPTA
Scoop
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
PPTA Members Polled On Additional Pay Claim To Recognise Pay Equity Loss
Press Release – PPTA The shocking changes made recently to the Equal Pay Act have not only extinguished our members claim for pay equity, but they also prevent us from making a claim in the future, says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president. Members of PPTA Te Wehengarua, the secondary school teachers' union, are being polled on whether they want to lodge an additional pay claim in their upcoming collective agreement negotiations now that new pay equity law has locked them out of the process. 'The shocking changes made recently to the Equal Pay Act have not only extinguished our members' claim for pay equity, but they also prevent us from making a claim in the future,' says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president. Secondary teachers do not meet the new threshold of being in a profession that is made up of at least 70% women. New comparator rules also lock teachers out of pay equity claims as the education sector is female dominated. PPTA members had expected the pay equity process to help address the low wages which are a key driver of the current secondary teacher shortage crisis. 'So, we are holding a vote for members to decide if they want to lodge an additional pay claim in the collective agreement negotiations due to begin soon. 'This additional claim would recognise the fact that a pay equity claim process is no longer available to us, because of the changes that were steamrolled through Parliament, without public discussion or mandate, to fill the holes in the Budget.' The ballot of 21,000 PPTA Te Wehengarua members opens today and closes next Friday. Results will be available around 11 June.
Scoop
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
PPTA Members Polled On Additional Pay Claim To Recognise Pay Equity Loss
Members of PPTA Te Wehengarua, the secondary school teachers' union, are being polled on whether they want to lodge an additional pay claim in their upcoming collective agreement negotiations now that new pay equity law has locked them out of the process. 'The shocking changes made recently to the Equal Pay Act have not only extinguished our members' claim for pay equity, but they also prevent us from making a claim in the future,' says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president. Secondary teachers do not meet the new threshold of being in a profession that is made up of at least 70% women. New comparator rules also lock teachers out of pay equity claims as the education sector is female dominated. PPTA members had expected the pay equity process to help address the low wages which are a key driver of the current secondary teacher shortage crisis. 'So, we are holding a vote for members to decide if they want to lodge an additional pay claim in the collective agreement negotiations due to begin soon. 'This additional claim would recognise the fact that a pay equity claim process is no longer available to us, because of the changes that were steamrolled through Parliament, without public discussion or mandate, to fill the holes in the Budget.' The ballot of 21,000 PPTA Te Wehengarua members opens today and closes next Friday. Results will be available around 11 June.
Scoop
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Kāhui Ako Decision Insults Teachers
Press Release – PPTA Defunding Khui Ako is an insult to the professionalism of teachers and their aspirations to be more effective and to have careers as outstanding classroom teachers and mentors of colleagues for classroom teachers. Doing away with Kāhui Ako insults teachers' professionalism and their aspirations to be more effective, writes Ken Wilson. I regard the Government's decision to repeal Kāhui Ako (communities of learning) as a catastrophe for the teaching profession, particularly for classroom teachers. This recent Budget decision will put back by at least a decade the creation and spread of stunning resources, improved teacher effectiveness, and practices that have a direct impact on increased student progress and achievement. It will put individual schools back into chains – the great freedom brought by Kāhui Ako staffing, release time, pay and career options will be gone. Control will go back to the centre. Kāhui Ako were established about 10 years ago to encourage and enable deliberate acts of collaboration between schools so that best teaching practice becomes universal. They were an innovative stroke of genius, on their way to revitalising the structure, operation, and focus of the compulsory education system and the early childhood sector. Defunding Kāhui Ako is an insult to the professionalism of teachers and their aspirations to be more effective and to have careers as outstanding classroom teachers and mentors of colleagues for classroom teachers. Innovation in education is extremely rare. Innovation driven from the ground up is even rarer, and yet, here in the Kāhui Ako model, we have just that, a profound innovation whose power to transform the compulsory education sector is so vast that few could imagine, contemplate or tolerate it. And the Ministry of Education – what did it do with this innovation? As fast as it could, it completed the establishment phase and moved on to the next fad. By around 2017 the Ministry had abandoned the nurturing of Kāhui Ako. The Kāhui Ako New National Appointments Panel published four reports on the impact and progress of Kāhui Ako. We surveyed experienced leaders and across- school teachers and recorded their suggestions for improving the model. Do you think the Ministry consulted the Panel at all? What are the chances that the Ministry paid any attention whatsoever to those informed and considered views? The answer to both is nil – not a skerrick. Kāhui Ako were designed to be consistent with sound, long-established educational theories of adult learning and organisation transformation. No OECD- identified disconnect between research and best educational practice here – Kāhui Ako found a way to situate both in private classrooms. I am often astounded to find that I am largely alone in grasping why this accomplishment is so momentous and what it promised classroom teachers and my grandchildren. As if overturning the core of Tomorrow's Schools (where each school is essentially a self-managing island) were not enough of a shock, the Kāhui Ako design team agreed to establish an independent quality assurance mechanism using a rigorous assessment process applied by very experienced teaching professionals. Fit for purpose, robust, readily accessible and understandable sound mathematical tools with high utility for the assessment of student progress and achievement are available and in use in a growing number of Kāhui Ako. And they were invented, and are being improved, by a former Kāhui Ako across-school teacher from Gisborne Boy's High School. Sound data may very well be our best defence against the next iteration of imposed national standards or assessments that are of little or no use for classroom teachers or principals. Education Minister Erica Stanford doesn't seem to have learned that Kāhui Ako was one part of a larger policy or that any were succeeding. She saw the $118 of lazy money and went for it. The Ministry could not provide frank advice about the virtues and values of Kāhui Ako because it had done nothing to gather any evidence in nine years. No research itself after an initial round, no commissioned research, and certainly no longitudinal research. A disgraceful indictment. More truly appalling is that the Ministry saw Kāhui Ako as having no educational benefit for students, teachers and the system as a whole. The glory that could have been a reviewed, refreshed and reinvigorated education system has been sacrificed through the extinguishing of Kāhui Ako, a world-leading innovation, something more substantial, powerful and precious than many of us even imagined, or frankly, are likely to see again. And who did this to classroom teachers? A choir of colleagues, largely principals, who cheerfully entered a Faustian bargain to sacrifice professionalism for resources. Ken Wilson MNZM is a former secondary teacher, union negotiator, education consultant and education commissioner. He is a member of the Kāhui Ako New Appointments National Panel.
Scoop
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Kāhui Ako Decision Insults Teachers
Press Release – PPTA Defunding Khui Ako is an insult to the professionalism of teachers and their aspirations to be more effective and to have careers as outstanding classroom teachers and mentors of colleagues for classroom teachers. Doing away with Kāhui Ako insults teachers' professionalism and their aspirations to be more effective, writes Ken Wilson. I regard the Government's decision to repeal Kāhui Ako (communities of learning) as a catastrophe for the teaching profession, particularly for classroom teachers. This recent Budget decision will put back by at least a decade the creation and spread of stunning resources, improved teacher effectiveness, and practices that have a direct impact on increased student progress and achievement. It will put individual schools back into chains – the great freedom brought by Kāhui Ako staffing, release time, pay and career options will be gone. Control will go back to the centre. Kāhui Ako were established about 10 years ago to encourage and enable deliberate acts of collaboration between schools so that best teaching practice becomes universal. They were an innovative stroke of genius, on their way to revitalising the structure, operation, and focus of the compulsory education system and the early childhood sector. Defunding Kāhui Ako is an insult to the professionalism of teachers and their aspirations to be more effective and to have careers as outstanding classroom teachers and mentors of colleagues for classroom teachers. Innovation in education is extremely rare. Innovation driven from the ground up is even rarer, and yet, here in the Kāhui Ako model, we have just that, a profound innovation whose power to transform the compulsory education sector is so vast that few could imagine, contemplate or tolerate it. And the Ministry of Education – what did it do with this innovation? As fast as it could, it completed the establishment phase and moved on to the next fad. By around 2017 the Ministry had abandoned the nurturing of Kāhui Ako. The Kāhui Ako New National Appointments Panel published four reports on the impact and progress of Kāhui Ako. We surveyed experienced leaders and across- school teachers and recorded their suggestions for improving the model. Do you think the Ministry consulted the Panel at all? What are the chances that the Ministry paid any attention whatsoever to those informed and considered views? The answer to both is nil – not a skerrick. Kāhui Ako were designed to be consistent with sound, long-established educational theories of adult learning and organisation transformation. No OECD- identified disconnect between research and best educational practice here – Kāhui Ako found a way to situate both in private classrooms. I am often astounded to find that I am largely alone in grasping why this accomplishment is so momentous and what it promised classroom teachers and my grandchildren. As if overturning the core of Tomorrow's Schools (where each school is essentially a self-managing island) were not enough of a shock, the Kāhui Ako design team agreed to establish an independent quality assurance mechanism using a rigorous assessment process applied by very experienced teaching professionals. Fit for purpose, robust, readily accessible and understandable sound mathematical tools with high utility for the assessment of student progress and achievement are available and in use in a growing number of Kāhui Ako. And they were invented, and are being improved, by a former Kāhui Ako across-school teacher from Gisborne Boy's High School. Sound data may very well be our best defence against the next iteration of imposed national standards or assessments that are of little or no use for classroom teachers or principals. Education Minister Erica Stanford doesn't seem to have learned that Kāhui Ako was one part of a larger policy or that any were succeeding. She saw the $118 of lazy money and went for it. The Ministry could not provide frank advice about the virtues and values of Kāhui Ako because it had done nothing to gather any evidence in nine years. No research itself after an initial round, no commissioned research, and certainly no longitudinal research. A disgraceful indictment. More truly appalling is that the Ministry saw Kāhui Ako as having no educational benefit for students, teachers and the system as a whole. The glory that could have been a reviewed, refreshed and reinvigorated education system has been sacrificed through the extinguishing of Kāhui Ako, a world-leading innovation, something more substantial, powerful and precious than many of us even imagined, or frankly, are likely to see again. And who did this to classroom teachers? A choir of colleagues, largely principals, who cheerfully entered a Faustian bargain to sacrifice professionalism for resources. Ken Wilson MNZM is a former secondary teacher, union negotiator, education consultant and education commissioner. He is a member of the Kāhui Ako New Appointments National Panel. Content Sourced from Original url
NZ Herald
22-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Budget 2025: Education's $2.5b boost: Where the money is going
The death of the scheme from January next year leaves around $375m for the school learning reform. A teachers union fears much of the funding for the education boost has come from the $12.8b saved by tightening up the pay equity scheme, calling it 'tainted money'. Education Minister Erica Stanford called it the biggest boost in a generation for learning support after years of 'pittance'. 'Teachers, I've heard what they've been telling me for the last 18 months – of the overwhelming nature of having so many children, and there are an increasing number of them, with additional learning needs. 'We don't have the teacher aide support, the specialist support, the speech language therapists, the educational psychologists that they need. We are now making sure those supports will be available.' The PPTA, an education union, finds the gains bittersweet, deploring the funding of education with 'tainted money' that was set aside to fund pay equity claims for hundreds of thousands of workers. 'It will be a constant reminder of the depths this Government is prepared to stoop to, to pay for unaffordable promises it made to win power,' union president Chris Abercrombie said. Around $36m in funding has been moved from one cluster of Māori education initiatives to another. The new Māori education package includes a training scheme to help teachers learn te reo, which comes after the Government cut a similar $30m scheme last year. It also includes the development of a 'te ao Māori learning area' and a 'virtual learning network' to plug gaps in teacher supply at wharekura and secondary schools. The Budget 2025 education package includes: $266m to extend the Early Intervention Service (EIS) from early childhood education to the end of year 1 of primary school. This will fund more than 560 additional FTE for EIS teachers and specialists. $122m to meet increased capacity of the ORS. $192m to put Learning Support Co-ordinator in all Year 1-8 schools and kura. $43m for an extra 78.5 FTE speech language therapists and additional psychologists and supporting teacher-aide hours. $4m for 25 intern educational psychologists annually. $90m of capital for approximately 25 new learning support satellite classrooms. Principal Infometrics economist Brad Olsen supported the funding boost, saying it would help these young people fulfil their potential as they became adults. 'It's clearly an area of need. Perhaps we really were underfunding it effectively for a longer period of time than we should have. 'These are people with a bit more support, with a bit more targeted support, can really start to fulfil their potential a lot more.'
