By DITA DE BONI
Education Minister Trevor Mallard has hit back at the region's striking teachers by postponing negotiations with the national secondary school teachers union indefinitely.
He said yesterday his decision "sends a signal to secondary school teachers that they cannot expect to negotiate over their collective agreement when they are taking industrial action that involves students not being taught".
Students are being sent home this week from Auckland schools because of rolling strikes.
Mr Mallard said the national executive of the Post Primary Teachers Association supported the Auckland action, and he was disappointed "that action of this nature was planned without even giving PPTA members the opportunity to consider the latest Government offer". About 2000 teachers belonging to the association refused to teach third-formers yesterday. They will do the same with each year level throughout the week.
Waitakere College branch PPTA chairman Chris Bangs said the problems and stresses faced by city area teachers, including poverty and other extreme social problems, had made Auckland members want to jump the gun on national strike action, scheduled for April 29.
"Supervised care" is being offered in place of classes with the help of relief teachers, though some relievers are members of the PPTA.
Most schools will roster home at least some students each day.
Students spoken to by the Herald yesterday seemed nonplussed about being rostered home. Meg Young, a year-seven student at Marist College, said she had had a chance to do assignment work, "watch TV, go to the shops and eat".
Parent Peter Beresford, whose seventh-form daughter will be sent home from Auckland Girls Grammar on Fridays until further notice, said he had misgivings about pupils having to catch up the hours they lost and the effect on exam success, but "I have a lot of sympathy for the teachers".
"What I can't understand is how the Government's push for a knowledge-based economy is helped by keeping teachers' salaries at levels where the best of them opt to leave the country or avoid the profession altogether."
Some principals felt divided loyalties as they grappled with the first day of teacherless classes.
Most agreed that teachers needed a better deal from the Government, but were also concerned that students would suffer if teaching schedules continued to be disrupted.
All hoped a deal would be hammered out between the PPTA and the Government by the beginning of term two on April 15.
Mt Albert Grammar School principal Greg Taylor said the action scheduled for this week was a "minor annoyance". His main concern was that if PPTA teachers stopped taking extra-curricular activities, an idea proposed by the union for next term, student activities would end up greatly reduced.
"Overseas, it has been shown that once teachers stop taking extra-curricular activities, they often stop altogether," he said.
Hillary College head Robin Staples said the stoppages were a nuisance. "The kids have a limited learning opportunity, and supervision is not the same as providing continuity of education that we normally offer.
"It's a very difficult position to be in as a principal, as I have loyalty and empathy with parents who want an education for their kids but on the other hand teachers have valid claims. We are hopeful there will be some commonsense negotiations over the holidays."
CHOICE TIME
The Government's latest offer to settle the teachers' pay dispute was presented as a choice between two options:
OPTION ONE
(estimated cost $121 million)
* Pay: 4 per cent salary rise for one year from next month, plus optional 2 per cent for a second year to April 2004. No backpay for the period since the last collective agreement expired in April last year.
* Targeted incentives: Includes allowances of $2500 for about 475 teachers in 22 hard-to-staff schools.
* Workload controls: Three hours of non-class contact time a week in this year and next, and four hours from 2004. Schools will "endeavour" to provide 5 hours from 2005.
* Government contribution to retirement savings of 0.5 per cent of salary.
OPTION TWO
(estimated cost $125 million)
* Pay: 2 per cent salary rise backdated to July 2001, 1.5 per cent rise in July, plus optional 2 per cent - July 2003-April 2004.
* Targeted incentives: Includes high-priority teacher supply allowance of $2500 extended to 1700 to 1800 teachers in 44 hard-to-staff schools.
* Allowances of $2805 for three years for 2000 teachers responsible for implementing new National Certificate of Educational Achievement.
* Workload controls: Same as option one.
* No Government contribution to retirement savings.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from New Zealand
'The Effect' cast on new Auckland Theatre Company production
The Effect cast on the new Auckland Theatre Company production about love and sexual attraction. Video / Supplied