Protest tour ends with Tolley dismissing fears on testing

Anne Tolley says dissenting primary school teachers are 'arguing last year's argument' over national standards. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

Primary school teachers have ended their nine-week bus tour campaigning for national standards to be trialled before they are implemented.

But they are vowing to fight on despite Education Minister Anne Tolley's refusal to discuss the issue with them and her claim the argument is over.

About 100 members of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) teachers' union and their supporters arrived at Parliament yesterday after a road trip which visited hundreds of schools and communities from Kaitaia to Bluff.

The campaign secured pledges from 1000 schools which agree the standards should be trialled before implementation. The union is also running a supporting petition which closes in May but already has 21,000 signatures.

Mrs Tolley chose not to address the gathering but did meet earlier with NZEI officials in her office.

NZEI president Frances Nelson told the Herald Mrs Tolley had refused to take questions on, or discuss the possibility of trialling, the standards.

Ms Nelson said the NZEI had invited Mrs Tolley "to think about the gap between the Government's position and the profession".

"Somewhere in the middle we have to meet and work out our differences.

"We would hope the minister will think about that and what would take the sector forward. We seem to have reached an untenable position."

Mrs Tolley said she understood the NZEI's position, "but it's also clear that the schooling sector as a whole has moved on". She said 81 per cent or 1759 schools had now signed up to implement the standards.

"I think the union's still arguing last year's argument."

But Ms Nelson said her members would continue to fight against the implementation of standards without a period of testing.

As well as schools in Northland, Southland, and Hawkes Bay that had already indicated they would boycott the standards, she expected others that had not indicated this would also resist implementation.

Industrial action was "not on our list at this time", Ms Nelson said, but the NZEI was "determined that we will give every shot to getting the minister to re-engage with the profession".

The Herald understands the NZEI cannot consider industrial action while it has an employment agreement in place. The NZEI's current contract runs out at the end of June.

Apart from being untested, the NZEI says the standards could label children as young as 5 as failures, could result in damaging and misleading league tables and are not the solution to under-achievement.