Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Angela Roberts
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Education
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Hekia Parata
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Investing in Educational Success
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John Key
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National Party
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New Zealand Principals Federation
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NZEI
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PPTA
Cabinet Ministers writing opinion-pieces in the metropolitan dailies is not a particularly regular event. Perhaps communication between the Executive and the general public would be better if it happened more often.
But on this occasion Hekia Parata has written a thoughtful piece in this morning's Dom-Post about her Government's Investing in Educational Success initiative, and it's well worth a read; she begins thus:
Teacher unions and others in the profession are helping design the details of a major new government education initiative.
Investing in Educational Success is not about paying large allowances to selected people, or creating a bigger corporate management structure.
Recently NZEI past-president Ian Leckie incorrectly stated that the education profession has not been consulted on the Government's major new $359 million initiative, Investing in Educational Success Why teachers are wary about a multimillion-dollar pay rise, June 5).
In fact, teacher unions and others in the profession have been working closely with the Government on the detail of the new initiative since very soon after it was announced in January.
A working group was formed of representatives from the NZEI, the PPTA, the New Zealand School Trustees Association, Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa, the New Zealand Principals' Federation, the Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Area Schools Association, the New Zealand Association of Intermediate and Middle Schooling, Nga Kura a Iwi o Aotearoa, Te Rūnanganui o Nga Kura Kaupapa Maori, and the Pasifika Principals' Association. It is chaired by Secretary for Education Peter Hughes.
This significant investment is designed to raise student achievement by building the quality and consistency of teaching and leadership across our education system.
We want to keep the best teachers in classrooms, share excellent practice so it becomes universal practice, and ensure that every student gets a better education. We want to get the best principals to the schools that need them most. We want better career pathways to attract the best and keep them in the profession. We want to reward their excellence with salaries that reflect their skills.
On the face of it, few would argue that what Mrs Parata is proposing is both ground-breaking and innovative. It has certainly been greeted with cautious optimism by much of the education sector.
There is however one notable exception to the cautious optimists; Mrs Parata continues:
Leckie's comments are unfortunate and a disappointing contrast to others in the education profession.
On the other hand, PPTA president Angela Roberts last week described the Government's collaboration with the education profession as "a positive example of sector collaboration".
She described the consultation process as "comprehensive, robust and genuine". She said the sector had "worked hard together to find pragmatic answers" and that "We feel Cabinet has heard us".
Secondary Principals Association chairman Tom Parsons has described the package as potentially a game-changer for education.
That NZEI is so out-of-step with other major teacher unions or organisations is no great surprise. NZEI has long been the most militant of the teacher unions. But on this occasion, it could take a lead from its big brother union, the PPTA. We blogged last week our compliments to Angela Roberts and her team for engaging with the Government, even though the two are long-standing foes.
Over the weekend we chatted to a family member who is a primary school principal with significant experience. They described their disappointment with the NZEI's adversarial approach to IES, suggesting that in their opinion, it had more to do with the looming General Election than with genuine concerns about the policy initiative.
And whilst Mrs Parata has often been criticised (and in some cases rightly so) for being less than transparent in her role, she notes that the Government has offered the education sector an open book with regard to the IES programme:
I have released the report of the working group so that those who wish to comment can actually see for themselves what the working group had to say
And for further transparency, I have also released the Cabinet paper in response. There is much more work ahead, and we are keen to continue to work together with the profession to get this right.
Investing in Educational Success is not about paying large allowances to selected people, or creating a "bigger corporate management structure" as Leckie asserts.
It is about setting achievement challenges specific to a community of schools and then using these additional resources of very skilled teachers and principals to work within and across that community to meet the challenges.
These challenges might be about mathematics, or science, or digital literacy. They will be a shared learning concern of the schools involved and they will be based on information about the specific needs of students in those schools. The professional collaboration that this initiative is based upon will target those needs together.
This initiative is exciting, it picks some of the best elements out of some of the most successful systems around the world, and is anchored in our knowledge of what works in New Zealand, and what our challenges are.
We are investing in educational success for every New Zealand child, and we are doing so with the profession.
When John Key launched the Investing in Educational Success initiative in January we noted this:
It is pleasing to see that the Government is keen to engage with unions and other sector groups to implement this plan. Whilst we're not a fan of unions, we believe that members of the teacher unions do have a genuine desire to improve the lives of the children entrusted into their care, and we hope that the unions are prepared to enter into collaboration with the Government and Minister Hekia Parata to achieve this.
Our view on that has not changed. We hope that NZEI will come to the table in the spirit in which the Government via Hekia Parata has put forward a proposal to upskill a large number of teachers, who will ultimately have an even more positive benefit on the children in their care.
