Incompetent teachers need to be struck off - Principals

File photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Too many incompetent teachers are being allowed to remain in classrooms, says the Secondary Principals Association.

Of the 95,000 registered teachers in New Zealand, 174 have been referred to the Teachers Council over competency issues in the past five years, one of whom was deregistered.

Association president Pat Walsh said there were concerns that not enough of the referred teachers were being struck off.

"These are cases where teachers are well below the benchmark in terms of curriculum delivery," Mr Walsh told Radio New Zealand.

"Sometimes it involves classroom management and complaints coming through from principals that the literacy levels of teachers are well below what they would expect to enhance the learning of students in the classroom.

"It's a very small number of teachers, but the complaint is that when these teachers are put through an extensive support and guidance programme in schools, given truck-loads of professional development and some of them end up being fired for incompetence, our expectation is that the Teachers' Council should be deregistering more."

Mr Walsh said some teachers had to undergo remedial work in order to write reports, some were unable to cope with the text books at year nine and 10 levels, and some were unable to do basic mathematics.

Teachers' Council director Peter Lind said a number of disciplinary measures were used in cases of incompetence, including imposing conditions and monitoring.

"In reality, most of these people are no longer employed," he said.

"They look at what's going to be required in terms of the conditions that are being imposed on their teaching certificate and they make a decision not to go teaching, or, alternatively, they can't get employed because they have these conditions on their practice."

Education Minister Anne Tolley said she was concerned by the reports of teachers not having basic skills.

"That's why I encourage the secondary principals to take it up with the Teachers' Council," she said.

Ms Tolley said new legislative changes meant teachers found incompetent by the Teachers' Council could have the conditions attached to the registration, which gave a heads up to anyone who was going to employ them.

"We've made some changes in legislation, that's what I can do, change the system for the, and we did that at the end of last year."

New Zealand Educational Institute president Ian Leckie said the concerns were misplaced.

"For teachers too, it's important that they have a fair system of accountability and one which offers extra support and appropriate professional development," Mr Leckie said.

"Those who use anecdotal comment on teacher competency are simply scaremongering. Teachers would expect any genuine concerns to be taken up with the school so action can be taken to ensure children's learning is not compromised."

- NZPA