Hundreds face loss of tech classes
Government moves to spread the funding for technology teachers more widely in the education sector will have a major impact on Hamilton intermediate, middle and primary schools, which could lead to the loss of technical education opportunities for hundreds of primary and intermediate-aged children.
Intermediate and middle schools have borne the brunt of the Government’s move to save money in the education system by increasing class sizes and removing a targeted technology enjoyed by intermediate and middle schools, as announced in the Budget last month.
Education Minister Hekia Parata fronted an angry national conference of intermediate and middle school principals in Auckland last week and the New Zealand Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools has called for a moratorium in an effort to halt staffing cuts.
Association president Gary Sweeney has asked Hekia Parata to put staffing cuts on hold and told member schools to stop working with the Education Ministry until such time as a ‘‘working relationship’’ could be re-established.
Hamilton principals say they are not satisfied by a partial back-track by the minister, who promised schools would not lose more than two technical teachers before 2016.
The issue revolves around funding for technology teachers, which had for many years been focused in years 7 and 8. The policy change announced in the Budget spread the funding across years 2 to 10.
When the new policy was announced it appeared as an improvement in teacher-pupil ratios. This turned out to be for schools other than intermediate and middle schools, which had previously attracted extra technology-focused funding.
Intermediate and middle schools were left with no way to offset the losses other than to cut staff or significantly increase class sizes. Hamilton schools, including Melville Intermediate and St Andrews Middle School, are referred to as ‘‘ provider’’ schools because they provide technical classes to hundreds of students from full primary schools and will be hardest hit by the move.
St Andrews Middle School has a roll of 150 students and relies on the staff it has to provide technical programmes for 380 children from five north Hamilton full primaries to keep its teacher pupil ratio at around 1/25.
Principal Tanya Thompson said her school stood to lose six teachers.
‘‘As we only have a roll of 150 we would lose all our five technical teachers and the art teacher.
‘‘It would cripple us. We would have to ask if we were still viable to stay open.’’
Ms Thompson said nationally intermediate and middle schools faced losing up to 800 teachers.
In a letter to parents the principal said the effect of the Government’s move was to slash staffing at all intermediate and middle schools.
‘‘ The staffing allocation that enables schools to provide technology programmes has been removed. Middle schools and intermediates will no longer receive the additional funding that has for many years enabled programmes like food, hard materials, textiles, art, biotechnology and other programmes to be provided.’’
St Andrews was also part way through an $800,000 renovation of its technical classrooms, which would become a redundant if it had no staff to utilise them.
Vaughan Franklin, principal of Te Rapa School, which sends 120 students to St Andrews for technical classes, said his school would do what ever it could to ensure his students continued to have access to technical education with St Andrews.
Mr Franklin said the Government’s focus on literacy and numeracy, while important, could not allow the destruction of other key areas of learning.
Melville Intermediate principal David Cook said his school provided technical classes for more than 100 students from contributing schools and could lose up to three staff by the end of the year or face ‘‘ rejigging’’ class numbers to 40 or more.
‘‘In my opinion, after listening to what the minister and the prime minister have been saying, no-one in Government realised the significance of what they were doing.
‘‘Or, more probably, the idea was generated somewhere in Treasury and the politicians are now trying to figure out how to admit their mistake.’’
Mr Cook had written to Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe expressing his concerns.
Maeroa Intermediate principal Delwyn Bain said she had put off employing a technical teacher due to the uncertainty and how the school would react to the situation would be discussed by its board.
Ms Bain said the real issues would begin after schools received their staffing schedule from the Education Ministry in September.
‘‘Then we’ll have to look at what we have and what we want to keep.’’
Berkley Normal Middle School principal John Crone believed the likely driving factor was the Government’s need to find money to fulfil its aim of keeping students in secondary education longer with the hope of improving NCEA level 2 pass rates.
Mr Crone said Hamilton primary schools who usually sent students to the provider schools for technical classes had recently received letters saying the funding they received to pay for transport of their pupils to the technical classes would be stopped.
A statement from the Education Minister’s office said schools will be given a guarantee that their staffing entitlement will not be reduced by more than two fulltime equivalent teachers over the next three years as a result of the policy changes.
It was also not the intention of the policy to undermine the specialist technology provision at years 7 and 8.