How hard is it? Harder than you may think
Early childhood teacher Ursula Visagie will resit her IELTS next month.
Although Visagie taught at an English school in South Africa and studied her bachelor’s degree in English, she is required to pass the IELTS because her schooling was bilingual – English is one of 11 official languages in South Africa.
She scored 8.5 on the listening, speaking and reading sections of the test last month, but fell short with a score of 6.5 on the writing section.
‘‘What I really think is that the council should lower the score for writing,’’ Visagie said.
‘‘I feel writing essays is not part of my teaching career in early childhood education, so why should it be compulsory to get a score of 7?’’
Under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act, New Zealand’s Teaching Council must maintain similar standards to Australia. In Australia, passing the IELTS requires a score of 7.5 on all sections.
Changes to the language policy are expected to take effect early next year.
Early Childhood Council chief executive Peter Reynolds has pushed for more urgent action.
The test was especially unfair on teachers entering Pasifika immersion preschools, he said.
Asked what system he would prefer, Reynolds said he was open to negotiating that with the Teaching Council but ‘‘flexibility’’ was important.
Dr Sarah Alexander, the chief executive of early childhood organisation ChildForum, said the Teaching Council was best placed to review the criteria.
While she did not believe the teacher shortage in early childhood was as critical as the Early Childhood Council claimed, Alexander still questioned the IELTS’ fairness.
‘‘If a non-New Zealander has studied at high school in New Zealand and completed NCEA in English, do they need to pass the test?’’