Teacher grading scheme delayed for further talks

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 15

Teacher grading scheme delayed for further talks

PA Wellington An assessment scheme for teachers will not be introduced in schools next year. The Education Department said the scheme was still being negotiated and would not be ready for implementation in 1984. When the Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, outlined his plans for the teacher grading system in May this year he said he hoped to have it established in schools next year. But the department’s assistant secretary of administration, Mr Peter Munn, said talks were still continuing between . the primary and post-primary schoolteachers’ associations and the boards’ associations. It was not known when an agreement could be reached, he said. The scheme would not be in schools next year. Once it was agreed on there was still much work needed, such as developing the necessary forms, before it could be put in place, Mr Munn said.

The Post-Primary Teachers’ Association said it was not keen on Mr Wellington’s personal-assess-ment scheme. “What we are looking for is the best way to guarantee the best teachers are in the classrooms,” said the national president of the P.P.T.A., Mr Desmond Hinch. “We are trying to find the best way that can be determined.” The primary teachers’ association, the New Zealand Educational Institute, said it wanted to look at a whole range of issues of teachers’ performance. These included whether teachers had one or two years’ pre-certification; the place of the three-yearly school inspections; and whether it was possible to examine teachers’ performance accurately. “We consider the wider issues are as important as the personal assessment of teachers,” said the deputy national secretary, Ms Helen Anderson.