Would you be a teacher?

I am privileged in that I am able to observe and interact with teachers on a daily basis, in my place of work at least. I also know others who teach in a variety of schools. Whilst I am still a teacher, my employment is primarily in the support area of our education system.

There has been a good deal of publicity recently about the Government’s desire to look at ways of increasing class sizes, using the rationale that better teachers is a more significant factor than smaller class size in achieving sound results for our students.

One would have thought that the research from here and overseas has made it patently clear that this is not always the case, but our ‘enlightened government’ is forging ahead to achieve their goal. I doubt that they are listening unless you count filling your ears with the advice of your lackeys (read Treasury), further entrenching their solidly held view. If they bothered to get off their chuffs and look a little wider I suspect that such narrow and failed reasoning would take a trip down the gurgler.  happen.

No--- that will not happen. There is a less than transparent goal driving the policy of the Key Government----saving money, hence the desperate search for a justification to make the cuts. The ever suffering public will get sucked in by the vision of a New Zealand facing a ‘Greek or Irish crisis.’ When the cuts are made and we start losing more teachers through stress and disillusionment, well--- it will be too late by then. The floodgates will open as the workload increases on an already jaded workforce.

 Once again it will be an incoming government to try to make amends and the cycle will continue. Who suffers while governments play politics----?   The kids and ultimately society.  

I don’t know what  the figures are and I am sure there are plenty of ‘experts’ who can quote them---- but for every dollar we spend on effective education, the payback in the future more than makes up for it.