Teachers have already lost
The current collective agreement round for teachers takes us back to the 1970s, and teachers and their unions are screwing this up very, very badly. They have already lost even if they ‘‘win’’. They have attempted to frame this as a solution to the apparent shortage of teachers. If so, they should provide researched evidence that an increase in pay will solve the problem, not anecdotes from whingeing 25-year-olds complaining about their chosen career.
The Australian rugby team have lost to the All Blacks consistently over a long period of time. They are smart enough to blame themselves and to see the need to improve. The unions are talking about the relative decline in teachers’ pay over the past 20 years. There have been only two players in the bargaining game – the government (of various colours) and the unions. The unions must have continuously lost, but do not have the humility and intelligence to blame themselves and their approach.
If New Zealand is to avoid a genuine crisis in education provision in the near future, a few things need to happen. As a start, the bar to entry for primary school teaching needs to go much higher in terms of prerequisite qualifications in maths, science and English. Lift the entry requirements and create a genuine bar for aspiring teachers to strive for, thus lifting the intake quality and enhancing the reputation of the profession in the eyes of Kiwi families.
The unpaid year of secondary training must go (and secondary training aspects of teachers’ colleges with it). A graduate in a highemployment economy and with vast international opportunities has to have either a calling to teaching (which is genuinely great) or a few screws loose to take another year off from earning an income to become a teacher.
Teachers should be able to start as paid trainees in schools, with formal ongoing study taking place alongside. A lift in incomes for already-earning teachers will do very little to bridge the gap that the unpaid training year creates – it is a mug’s game in the 21st century.
Teachers and their unions need to stop whingeing about their jobs. Nowhere else on the planet does a profession have 12-14 holiday weeks a year. If you have to do some work in those holidays, you still have huge choices about