Kiyota.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. This week, we'll see mass walkouts across the country as one hundred thousand teachers and medical staff go on strike this Thursday, October twenty third, eleven thousand, five hundred allied health workers will walk off the job, as well as thirty five hundred mental health and public health nurses and mental health assistants, more than thirty six thousand nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants, and
four hundred nurses and healthcare assistants working for corrections.
On top of all of this, in a historic first.
Primary school teachers, primary Principles, school support staff and Ministry of Education specialist staff as secondary and area school teachers will all strike together.
Today on the front page.
PPTA President Chris Abercrombie is with us to take us through what needs to change in our education sector.
So, Chris, this is a huge display.
You've got primary and secondary schools, teachers and assistants all striking across the country.
What has led to this.
Well, it's really disappointing that it's happening at all, and it's not just teachers, as there's nurses, there's public servants, there's care workers, there's a whole range of workers really just showing their unhappiness with what's happening at the moment.
What's lead for us in particular is around really our issues aren't being addressed, and we know there is significant unmet need in our secondaries, particularly our secondary schools at the moment, be it mental health needs, be a specific learning needs, being lots of other things.
And we really need that need met.
We've got this government introducing once in a generation curriculum and assessment change, and we need a workforce to to be able to deliver that.
Is this just the worst time to introduce a curriculum change.
Well, it seems to be everything all at once, you know.
So we've got, you know, from the primary sector, we've got structured literacy, mass mastery. We've also got an attendance focus. Now in secondary, we're doing a new curriculum area. Junior primary schools already looking at new curriculum areas. We've got a whole new subjects coming in a secondary and then we've also got a whole new assessment on top of that, we're creating a national vocational pathways that we've never had, and a whole new system to deliver that in two years.
It's a very big ask of the government to do this at the time we're having chronic teacher.
Shortages and in order to get those teachers, and you've got to pay them fairly.
Yeah, so terms and paying conditions. Terms and conditions are a really key part of this. And you know, it pays important and I never want to say it's not, but actually, what I'm hearing more and more from our teachers is actually the conditions. It's the issues around having enough pastoral care time, having enough professional development, having enough curriculum support. That's the things that they're actually they're talking to me about when I visit schools, and I visit
schools all the time. I was in Northland this week visiting secondary schools there, and that's what they're telling me.
What about people who say, oh, you get all these school holidays?
Though, oh, look, it would be amazing if we did. And this is one of the funny things about it.
And often the people that tell us how great our job is and how easy it is will also be the same ones that will say, oh, I can never do that though. So look, teaching is an amazing profession and there's this weird mix of flexible and inflexible time, and term breaks are often that flexible time where teachers. You know, I attended several conferences. These holidays were subject associations. Our conference was these holidays, and I know every school holidays is number of conferences.
Teachers will refuse to teach certain class levels from year seven to thirteen on certain days.
How disruptive is this for the kids?
Well, unfortunately, it does create disruption.
It is less disruptive than a full strike, and that's the reason that teachers have chosen to do this because the vast majority of students are still at school and it creates less time out of class. So most students well in the next from this weekend, next week will most likely be around two hours of our teaching time miss for each subject. So it's an attempt to lessen that disruption because we understand it's an important time.
Teachers have been working hard with their students all year to get them up to that point.
So it is disruptive and it's disappointing that it is, but unfortunately that's what we have to do.
We want to make make sure that those children who are going into exams aren't going to be missing out on the final few days that they have with their teachers before they sit their exams, will sit their mock exams which they get their derived grades from that they're in class with those teachers. And unfortunately we haven't been able to get to that position. But it's not through lack of trying and good faith on our side.
So this is all happening in the lead up to and during INCA exams. I saw Erica Stanford actually tell Morning Report the kids need their teacher in front of them for that very last minute revision. So how do you respond to public and parents' concerns about this disruption to students learning during this formative time.
Well, again, I think teacher that work really hard with the students the whole year to prepare them for this. Teachers will be available outside of the industrial time to support students, and the sort of the claim that was going to disrupt exams, it's just not true. Teachers aren't allowed anywhere near the exams. Quite rightly, you can be supervising your own students and the NCAA examine.
We're not even allowed in the room while the exams are taking place. So that's a bit of a red hearing.
Teachers say, I've been working really hard to support their students and they will be available outside of the industrial time to again support them and to help them achieve at the best of the level they can.
How many more kids these days do require that extra support?
Can you give me an example whectually?
There's a really good example in a recent there's a survey called tell Us and it's an international survey new Zealand teachers. So a quarter of New Zealand teachers report that at least ten percent of students at their school need some sort of support, and so some of the highest in the world in that. So our teachers are saying, hey, we need support, Our students need more support. And that's for lots of reasons. We're understanding things are much better.
We understand the brain much better, how it works. We're recognizing things when I was at school a long time ago, now we didn't really recognize. I think about my mother, my mother's dyslexic, but when she went to school, she was just dumb because that's what they thought back then. And so making those sort of understanding that a bit better,
meaning that we're needing more and more. But also our students are in a very complex world, way more complex than when I was at school, or most people were at school in living in a world that really if you're an older person you just can't understand. And so if you're not dealing with teenagers every single day, you just can't really understand the world.
They're living in.
Yeah, do you think that there's an increase in learning difficulties or you know, just is there just more awareness about different needs that we haven't really prioritized in the past.
I think it's definitely more awareness of different needs that again that we hadn't prioritized in the past, or we're never recognized in the past. And also there's we know there's an increase in sort of anxiety issues, mental health issues, and we need to be able to support those students in the school so we can get.
On with the teaching and learning.
That's the really key part to this is that we need the support so that can be dealt with so the teachers can get on with the teaching and learning.
I guess so when someone starts a sentence with well, back in my day, you.
Must roll your eyes. You must get that all the time.
Absolutely. And look, I grew up in a very small rural town. You know, I had the ninety people in my hometown. I went to a two teacher, three teacher primary. I went to a very small rural secondary, and so my education was very sort of I wes sort of standard. And it's just so different to that nowadays. And I know people say, oh, it's all the same, but it's really not. It's such a complex changing role now. One
example I can give actually is around bullying. Actually, you know, back when I was at school, you know, and bullying happened, they didn't bring up the landline and go hello missus Abra Crombie clim please billy your son.
Yeah, then you write you a letter.
And now with the world it is and how connected we are, it's potentially twenty four to seven for these young people, and it's and I know it's easy for older people to say, I'll just turn off your phone or uninstall Instagram or whatever, But for these young people, that's the connection to the world, connection with their friends, and so it's really hard for us to sort of understand that world.
Again, if you're not dealing with teenagers every day. It's really hard for you to understand.
Well, that really leads me into my next question because it was going to be has technology improved teaching or added new pressures? But I suppose you're probably dodging AI left, right and center as well.
It's a bit of both. So I think the key thing is that teachers really see technology as a tool. Is you know, like like you see anything and your talk and a certain situation, that tool is amazing and it's going to really help that teaching and that learning to take place, and other times.
Is actually going to hinder it's actually going to take away from it.
And so that's one of the things around the professional development teachers want is that actually we need to upscale ourselves before we can support the students because we often, and I really dislike this phrase, the students are digital natives and digital and I don't really like that because there's just as complex for them as it is for anyone.
Ouse it's just then more willing to give it a go.
They're more willing to have a crack at it and not worry about those things that sort of you know, older people or people who are a bit more concerned about it will be. And I think some things have been really good. And I'll give props to the government for this. About the cell phone band, I know teachers were really worried about how that was actually going to work, but from all accounts i've heard, it's been really positive
and leading some really positive outcomes. So we can make these changes, it's just making sure we've got the.
Support to do it.
How's morale amongst teachers at the moment.
That's a tough question to so I visit schools quite often and there describe this They because they love teaching, like they love the role, they love being in the classroom. Often I get asked, I've been out of the classroom a couple of years to take on this president role, and they're like, do you miss teaching? Absolutely, I've missed being in the classroom. I missed the teaching, but a
lot of the stuff outside of it. That's that's where the issues come in, sort of the significant government change. And I mentioned the Talus report. New Zealand teachers are some of the most stressed in the world, were the third most stress according to the survey, and most of that is driven by the constant change put forward by the government, and so that's putting a lot of pressure on schools on principles, I'm learning support.
On all aspects of the sector. It's putting a lot of pressure on it.
If we put pay and benefits to the side, just for a second, what realistically, can you give me any numbers? We need this many teacher support aids, we need this many new classrooms, we need this many new people.
So we know, for instance, from the government the Ministry stats, we're five hundred and fifty secondary teachers short this year and we're five hundred short for next year, so that those are the numbers we're talking about. But when we survey principles is actually a bit higher. Its closer to thee thousand mark, because what schools are doing is they're using people to sort of cover a position. So it say I'm a history teacher, i might be teaching physics.
Now I'll give it a good crack, but those students aren't going to get the best deal out of me as a physics teacher. And so we think the numbers more around about one thousand short. But also we know we've got an aging workforce, and so in the next five to ten years, that number is going to significantly increase. And we also know we need significant investment into professional development to support.
These changes coming through.
So in the last budget, the government took sixty million dollars out of secondary and put that into some primary initiatives. So we're already down that significant resource and secondary and so we really need to at least, you know, focus on getting that back up.
And then the future budgets coming going forward.
Yeah.
I had a similar conversation with nurses and they say, look, it's better doing local work and casual work. Is it the same for teachers? Is relief work actually pay better?
So on a per a day rate, yes it does.
You don't get the holiday paid the same, it gets included in your pacement, but in your day pay.
But you can be five days a week, every day every week.
Doing relief and there's a significant short Yeah, the works there, there's significant shortage, and there's lots of reasons for that. One of the big ones is actually schools are bringing people back into the workforce and the full time workforce, so they're using their relievers as full time, perimanent teachers. When using a lot of retired teachers, I visited one of my old schools last year and was still.
One of my teachers there.
She said, I retired, Chris, but I have to come back in because the.
School needed me. And so that's a really common thing.
It's sort of becoming a bit of a joke called the old teacher retirement.
I know a few teachers every tired four.
Times now, but they keep coming back in because the school needs them.
Kis are getting a bit sick of the union's going on straight action rather than actually because it's putting our kids who have missed out on a lot of school off school. We've got a lot of students about to go into exam mode. We are also a lot of patients, frankly, that are also wanting to get through the weight lesson into surgeries as well, so they can get through the pain and suffering. I've got Our only ask is that we just want the youths to come around the table
and negotiate. We appreciate we don't have a bottomless pit of money. We know we've got very straight and economic times. We've got to deal with that reality. But the answer is not to go into strike action and cause pain and suffering for parents and kids and patients. The answer is actually get around the table and stick with it and to go through bargaining process.
How confident are you that this strike will do anything.
I'm always optimistic about this.
We know from previous experience, we know from lots of other conversations we've had that that these do shift the needle because it shows the government how willing we are, how important this is, that will fore go pay, that will take these chances here to.
Really push for an improvement in terms of conditions.
And there's an old saying, you know, teachers working conditions, of students learning conditions. So if we've got a well supported teacher workforce, then we're going to have a well supported student body our young people. And there's heaps of evidence of if you have a workforce that is dedicated and focused, you can get change. The increase in attendance, for instance, the changes in the structured literacy and numeracy that was well supported and we've seen change in that.
And so if you support the teachers, they'll do the main and you've supports the schools, they'll get the job done. But when we don't have the teacher expertise, we don't have the subject specialist. When we're not getting the learning support, when our guidance counselors are under the pump supporting students with mental health issues because there's no care in the community for them, then it makes it hard to keep those successes going.
Is the government willing though.
Oh, look, I think they are. They keep saying they want a world class education system. Well, if you want a world class education system, you have to pay for it. You can't have that on the g And it's all about political decisions. They're as simple as that. The government just needs to make the decision to fund education, to fund teachers, to fund schools. And they'll say, oh, we're doing this, we're building classrooms and we're doing this, and
we're doing that. But without the workforce to fill those classrooms, without the workforce to fill those teacher aird roles or those senco roles, with those learning support roles, then there's no point in them. You need to make sure you've got your workforce there to implement your changes, the changes that you want, and then they're be abule to get the best outcomes.
For the young people.
Thanks for joining us, Chris, no worries.
Thanks for having me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.