Three-way action plan by teachers

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 1

Three-way action plan by teachers

By

JENNY LONG

Secondary school teachers may strike, place a one-term ban on after-hours activities, or refuse to use their own cars for school activities if no progress is made in award talks resuming this week.

• Possible action, including a $200,000 publicity campaign, has been discussed at nation-wide meetings this week. Christchurch teachers will meet on Monday and Tuesday. The award talks are complicated this year by the changed school administration system, to be introduced in October. Some of the Government’s proposals for the new system, such as contracts for principals, are being put forward in the award round by the State Services Commission. Individual boards of trustees at each school would have power to determine individual rates of pay for teachers. The P.P.T.A. argues that industrial matters, such as contracts and pay rates, should not be devolved to individual school boards to such a large extent It commissioned an independent report on the Government’s

proposals by Mr Rae Munro of the Auckland College of Education. He concluded that the “school management and industrial model proposed ... will damage the education system and run counter to the ideals of greater community involvement and team management.” The P.P.T.A. is to seek a meeting with the Minister of Education, Mr Lange, on the report. At the P.P.T.A. meetings this week, teachers will be asked to request the Government to join with the union in investigating the research. This would determine the educational effects of the proposed changes in teachers’ conditions once and for all, the union said. The meetings are to bring members up-to-date on award talks, and to ask what actions they favour. A ban on extra-curricular

activities would help make par-ents-aware of the variety of after-school work done by teachers. In an unfriendly, non co-operative environment such goodwill could be withdrawn, the union said. Other action that teachers might take includes setting up a nationwide “hotline,” which would allow members of the public to telephone about their concerns and talk with teachers. Different schools would choose different methods of lobbying members of the public, boards and parents, in order to gain their support, the union said. If publicity and other action fails, rolling stoppages may hit all schools, or those in key Cabinet Ministers’ electorates may be targeted. Teachers may donate the equivalent of a day’s pay to help fund the campaign.