Kia ora koutou

I hope all is well with you and your families.

Just a reminder about the strike next week. The school will be closed on Wednesday, 15 August. I know this will cause some hardships for you as you seek to sort child care etc. However, education is at crisis point and a plan needs to be committed to which will put education back onto a more sustainable footing. Teachers’ pay is often at the forefront of the media articles about the strike. For me, this is not the most important thing we are fighting for. However, I found out the other day that some older teachers, who trained as teachers in training colleges and have a diploma of teaching rather than a degree, have a top pay rate of $59,000. They are among our most experienced teachers, and do the full job of a teacher, but can only get to $59,000. This has quite shocked me.

Another of the “strike” issues, as I have mentioned to you, is about the excessive workload of teachers. The third main issue is about the inadequate resourcing provided to schools to meet the special needs of students. Many of our most vulnerable and at risk students are simply not picked up by the system due to insufficient funding. The burden to meet their needs is then left with already overworked and underfunded schools who do not necessarily have the expertise to meet each child’s specific needs. Something has to change!

We hope that you will support teachers in their quest for a better future of education.

Nga mihi nui

Lesley