A couple of months ago, National announced that it was trying to re-introduce bulk funding of New Zealand schools. And now they're getting the natural response: industrial action from teachers:
Meetings for 60,000 teachers will be held across the country during school hours next month in opposition to the Government's proposed funding review.
The paid union meetings are the first time the New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) and Post-Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) have undertaken joint meetings of such a scale.
The unions say the Government's latest funding proposal, part of an attempt to fix the stigma attached to the current decile model, would be a "return to the failed bulk-funding experiment of the 1990s".
"It could result in fewer teachers and larger class sizes.
This is only the beginning. Last time the government tried this, they faced years of strikes and stoppages across the education system, and schools which accepted bulk funding were blacklisted. And all of that will happen again if National tries to re-impose this policy. If they want the education system to function, they need to work with teachers, not against them, and give up on the stealth cuts of bulk funding.
