Support sought for strike

More children will fail to realise their potential unless conditions in primary school classrooms are improved, a union representative warns, as teachers across the region prepare to strike.

Almost all primary and intermediate schools in Nelson city and Tasman district are due to shut tomorrow, as teachers strike for the second time in three months, on day four of a week of rolling strike action nationwide.

The union representing primary school staff, the NZEI, is urging parents and the wider community to show their support at separate protests across the region, with a ‘‘mini-march’’ planned from outside the Trafalgar Centre in Nelson at 10am.

The future was bleak for children unless more teachers were recruited, NZEI Nelson primary teachers coordinator Stacey Ashley said. ‘‘Too many’’ teachers were leaving, retiring early or reducing their hours because of extreme workload.

‘‘It’s getting harder and harder to teach to the actual curriculum level for many children,’’ Ashley said.

‘‘There’s 850 teachers missing next year, so it’s pretty logical they’ll be in an overcrowded classroom, teachers will be putting out more fires, because there’ll be even more additional-needs children in one class statistically.’’

The strike action is taking place despite a new government offer at the end of last week. ‘‘The offer is not substantially different from the last offer, and so we didn’t feel we had the mandate to withdraw the strikes,’’ NZEI president Lynda Stuart said.

Teachers and principals would meet in Nelson, Motueka and Takaka tomorrow, to make sure they understood the offer, Stuart said. NZEI members were due to vote in secret online ballots ‘‘in the coming weeks’’.