Union meetings against charter school proposal

SECONDARY school teachers in Dunedin and Queenstown will step away from their whiteboards at 1pm today, to hold paid union meetings about the Nationalled coalition government’s attempt to reintroduce charter schools in New Zealand. They are among many meetings to be held over the next two weeks around the country, focusing on how secondary teachers will respond to the government’s proposals to channel money out of public education and into charter schools.

The proposed charter schools could have the autonomy to set their own curriculum, qualifications, pay rates for teachers, school hours and school terms.

They could also be operated by sponsors such as Maori ¯ Iwi, notforprofit organisations, businesses or existing education providers.

More than 21,000 secondary and area school teachers across the country are expected to attend the meetings.

Other meetings in the southern regions will be held at the Invercargill Civic Theatre (2pm, May 15), Fiordland College (2pm, May 16), South Otago High School (1.30pm, May 20) and Dunstan High School (1.30pm, May 22).

New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Chris Abercrombie said there had been ‘‘a glaring lack of consultation and information’’ from both the Ministry of Education and minister on how charter schools would work, despite repeated requests for details through official information requests and facetoface meetings.

‘‘Charter schools were a hugely expensive and unproven experiment when they were last introduced back in 2014.

‘‘Funded totally by public money, they can be run by whoever wants to run them, they are not required to be transparent or accountable, they can use untrained and unqualified staff as teachers and they’re not required to

Chris Abercrombie teach the national curriculum.

‘‘The fact that all the charter schools — bar one — were able to be reintegrated successfully back into the state school system demonstrates there was no need for them in the first place.’’ He said the association was ‘‘seriously concerned’’ this time around about existing schools being converted to charter schools.

‘‘There are significant implications for children and young people’s access to their local school, teachers’ terms and conditions of work, redundancy costs, property issues and much more.

‘‘Every school community has a right to know what is being planned.’’ He said the meetings would also discuss how the union would continue to affirm and advance te Tiriti o Waitangi, one of its main constitutional goals, in light of the government’s apparent stance on te Tiriti. ‘‘We are concerned that some of the government’s policies are undermining the great work that has been done in schools towards improving educational outcomes for akonga ¯ Maori.’’ ¯