After 19 years working as a teacher, Vanessa Millar still loves her job, but says it is only becoming harder to give the students the “help they need”.
“We have such [large] class sizes and we have so many students with needs, and we need more time, we need more resourcing to be able to achieve the help they need. It’s just unfair that we’re having to wait so long to help our kids because ultimately, that’s why we’re here,” the Matua Primary School teacher says.
She is one of 50,000 early childhood workers, primary and secondary teachers and principals who will take part in a nationwide strike this Thursday.
Both the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), covering secondary and area school teachers, and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), covering primary and kindergarten teachers, said members were striking for better pay, higher staffing numbers and more school funding.
The Ministry of Education says it has offered “significant increases” and improvements to many of the conditions union members wanted addressed.
Negotiations continued yesterday but no agreement was reached.
Millar cut her hours at the start of this year as she “could not sustain” a 40-hour work week while juggling caring for her two-year-old daughter. She now teaches her class of Year 1 pupils four days a week.
“I found that I was working so much I wasn’t seeing my daughter at all - that’s how it felt. It was a decision to reduce my workload so I could have more balance and be a mum,” she said.
Millar said she strongly supported strike action for the future of the “wider education sector” and better outcomes for young people.
“I want to set them up for their life, and it’s just so hard to achieve all of that.”
Change was also needed to attract more people to the profession and retain beginning teachers, she said.
Millar said among many teachers, there was a “lack of confidence” in the Ministry of Education because of “successive failures to provide what schools need in terms of funding, resources and class sizes”.
In her class of 21, there was a lack of teacher aide support for children with additional needs, she said.
“The thing I find most difficult is when I have [large] class sizes and no teacher aide time - even though we have neurodiverse children or children with learning needs,” she said.
“If one child needs emotional support or one-on-one teaching time, who is looking after the rest of the class when that is happening?”
She described teaching as an “emotional job”, saying she often stayed up at night worrying about how she could improve learning outcomes for her students.
“I have been on Pinterest in the middle of the night researching learning through play provocations for the children that are really into dinosaurs. That’s the sort of thing we think about in the middle of the night.”
Beginning Tauranga secondary teacher Ben Radford will join Thursday’s strike after seven weeks in the profession.
The 25-year-old, who teaches English to students in Years 9 to 11, said his main reason for joining was to “stand with more experienced teachers” working under challenging conditions.
“New teachers certainly have their own challenges to face, but we are all here to support those more experienced,” he said.
Radford said better pay for beginning teachers was needed amid the cost of living crisis. It would also help make the profession more appealing, he said.
“Prices are incredibly high at the moment. If you are being paid just above minimum wage, it’s not particularly enticing for anyone looking at coming into the teaching profession.”
He earned roughly $51,000 a year and regularly found himself working over 40 hours a week.
Meanwhile at Te Kura o Maketū, Year 1 to 3 kaiako [teacher] Robyn Lose said the inequities within the whole system meant “tamariki are missing out”.
Lose, who had taught at the kura for six years, said the Ministry of Education promoted outcomes of equity but was “not willing to fully invest” in the processes to achieve it.
“Eliminate the disparities within our education system. Our tamariki deserve it, and we do too.”
She said strike action was a “high priority” as she wanted to see changes in a profession that was under-resourced and under-valued.
“They [students] get the bare minimum of everything. We have to exhaust every avenue just so they don’t [miss out].”
Educators also needed more time to complete the administration involved in their roles, rather than doing it at home.
“Instead of taking it home, when that is supposed to be our whānau time. Keeping a work-home life balance has proven difficult.”
On Friday, Andrea Andresen, NZEI Te Riu Roa ki Waiariki Bay of Plenty area council chairwoman, said she would be striking because teachers were having to pay out of their own pockets and compromising their health and relationships to meet the needs of the system.
She said improving the non-contact time and support for students with additional needs would help stem the continual stream of teachers leaving the sector.
PPTA Western Bay of Plenty regional chairwoman Julie Secker said post-Covid-19, more problems in the community were falling at teachers’ feet.
“We need more help in the classroom. We need more support staff. We need more help for counsellors.”
NZEI Te Riu Roa president Mark Potter said while its discussions of collective agreement negotiations were worthwhile no offer was tabled by the Ministry and the teacher strike will still go ahead.
Ministry of Education employment relations and pay equity general manager Mark Williamson said the offer that NZEI members had rejected so far provided “significant increases”.
“For example, a $4000 increase to trained teacher salaries from December 1, 2022 and a further 3 per cent or $2000 increase to salaries on December 1, 2023,” he said.
Williamson said primary teachers were also offered improvements to many of the conditions that NZEI has been looking to address.
“We set aside over $380 million so that pay parity can be maintained for all registered early learning teachers.
He said bargaining had resumed in an attempt to reach a settlement and “avoid disruption” to children, families, employers and communities.
The woman was shaken by the incident.