Unified teaching may bring equal status

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 8

Unified teaching may bring equal status

Primary and secondary schoolteachers may be closer to achieving equal status.

A meeting to discuss a unified teaching service is planned next week between the two teacher unions and the Minister of Education, Mr Marshall.

Stumbling blocks in the past have included salary (primary pay is lower), conditions of service, and training. The courses offered for primary and secondary teachers are of different length and type.

While it will not be the first time the two unions have met, the signs this time were “more hopeful,” said Mr Bob Baird, president of the New Zealand Educational Institute, primary teachers’ union. The new initiative was announced by the president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Mr Peter Allen. He said the P.P.T.A. would be prepared to reconsider a unified service, provided all parties negotiated on all issues.

The Roper Committee of Inquiry into Violence, released earlier this year, recommended equal status for all teachers in the field of education. N.Z.E.I. policy has always been for a unified service.

“The teacher is the most expensive resource the Government can train, and it has always seemed strange to us that a very well trained person is

used in just one particular area," said Mr Baird. A unified service would make curriculum continuity much easier to achieve, said the Christchurch Teachers College principal, Dr Colin Knight, yesterday. The new art syllabus, for instance, began with new entrants, and continued through to Form 7. Previously, the college had been pleased with the introduction of Forms 1 to 4 syllabuses in science or English, for example. The present area schools could well provide a good model for a unified service, said Dr Knight. Area schools, in country areas, have pupils from new entrants to Form 7. Teachers may be required to teach any of the pupils, with the one music teacher taking all classes.

The present salary scale for area schools falls between that of primary and secondary schools.

A unified service would have implications for teacher training, but primary and secondary trainees would always have different courses, for different specialisations, said Dr Knight.

Secondary teacher training should be in-' creased from one to two years, irrespective of decisions on a unified service, Dr Knight said.