Learning support gains at the expense of women and expert teachers
Education union NZEI Te Riu Roa says educators will welcome the Government's investment in learning support, but will be devastated it has been paid for by gutting pay equity and defunding so many expert teachers.
NZEI Te Riu Roa has long campaigned for more funding for early intervention service staffing, learning support coordinators, psychologists and service managers, and the Ongoing Resource Scheme (ORS) and some increases were delivered today.
"NZEI Te Riu Roa members have repeatedly called for the Government to address the learning support crisis and we’re glad to see our message has gotten through. For tamariki to thrive they need more support throughout their education journey,” says NZEI Te Riu Roa Te Manukura/President, Ripeka Lessels.
She said, however, that while the investment sounds like a lot, it is a drop in the ocean when $2.5b is needed by 2029 to correct the long-running underinvestment in our tamariki.
Ms Lessels says she was extremely sad to hear Resource Teachers of Māori and Resource Teachers of Literacy services would be defunded and Kahui Ako disbanded.
“The Minister is setting in train the biggest round of cuts to expert teacher roles in living memory without any plan for how their expertise is retained. More than 4000 teachers will be impacted.
"I used to be a resource teacher of Māori, so to hear these roles will be cut is incredibly hard. Scrapping the resource teacher Māori service is also a clear breach of the Government’s requirement to give effect to Te Tiriti and to equitably resource Māori learners and their kaiako.”
“Kāhui Ako were also cut without any consultation with a single teacher, principal or any other educator. This Government rushes legislation through under urgency to avoid consulting with New Zealanders and it axes sizeable programmes without asking for feedback.”
Another concern is the schools’ operations grants, the funding that pays for the running of schools. It is being increased by only 1.5%. With inflation at 2.5% this amounts to a funding cut in real terms and will put pressure on schools to meet staffing costs, in particular for teacher aides.
“The additional teacher aide support for the early intervention service is welcome, however it only partly plugs the gap left by the operations grant cut. This cut is another huge hit to teacher aides, who are still in shock after the pay equity law was gutted,” says Ms Lessels.
“Teacher aides are often funded from operating grants, and it means principals are sometimes put in the awful position of having to cut their hours to pay for other expenses. Today’s Budget means teacher aides’ already wobbly work security just got even more precarious.”
The early childhood education (ECE) sector, which includes kindergartens, private and community-based early childhood education centres, kōhanga reo, puna reo and pacific language services, are the big losers in this Budget, with only a 0.5% increase in their ECE subsidy – centres' main source of funding.
"With inflation running at 2.5% and centres facing what is effectively a funding cut in real terms, this will put huge pressure on them to cover their staffing costs, pushing up fees for whānau and potentially leading some centres to close,” says Ms Lessels.
"Make no mistake - this will damage the quality and availability of education for our youngest learners, at a time when the sector is already facing what amounts to cuts to the quality of teaching and learning as the Government changes ECE regulations."
Ms Lessels says pay equity changes were also front of mind. "The Government has funded a significant portion of their Budget by erecting barriers to stop women from achieving pay equity. Teachers, teacher aides, librarians, therapists and many more are essentially paying for these new services themselves.”
ENDS