Blunder leaves teacher selection ‘in shambles’

Press, 10 October 1989, Page 1

Blunder leaves teacher selection ‘in shambles’

By MARITA VANDENBERG An Education Department blunder and underfunding have left teachers’ college selection procedures in a shambles, says the registrar of the Christchurch College of Education, Mr Tom Gregg. Teachers’ colleges had got half the funding they had been told they would receive — down from $160,000 to $83,000 for the Christchurch college — and a third of the staffing they needed. The department had admitted that someone had “pushed the wrong buttton on a computer,” further impoverishing the funds for each college. Instead of receiving $64,000 to cover teacher trainee selection panel members’ fees, the college got $16,000 — reducing the $83,000 to $35,900.

Teachers colleges took over control of the selection process from the now-defunct education boards this year. At a conference in March to discuss the transition, colleges were told all funding associated with student selection was to be identified and reallocated. The Christchurch College of Education expected the operating budget would be about $160,000, with between three and 4.5 administrative staff positions. They were then told that would be $83,000. But on September 14 the Education Department advised the college it would receive only $35,900 (about $31,000 after GST) and one fulltime staffing equivalent. Mr Gregg wrote to the department saying it was “plainly ridi-

culous” considering the college had nearly 2000 applicants to deal with.

Mr Gregg also wrote to the Minister of Education, Mr Goff, saying colleges were not only under-funded but a new restriction placed on them requiring them to take on certain lay selection panel members had brought extra costs. Lay members are paid $l5O a day and lay chairpersons $250 a day.

Mr Gregg said the department responded by allocating a further seven months-worth of staffing. He said he was then told that there had been a slip of someone’s finger on a computer button which reduced the funds that had been allocated to pay lay panel members.

The college received $16,000 (which was included in the total of $35,900) instead of the required $64,000, leaving them $48,000 short (for paying lay members). Mr Gregg said he was told about the slip-up on September 27. The Department had since gone out of existence and the matter passed on to the new Ministry. There has been no communication from the Ministry to say they were aware of the problem and no indication if the $48,000 mistake had now been rectified, he said.

Yesterday Mr Gregg sent a facsimile to the Ministry to bring the matter to its attention.

Mr Gregg said he had found other teachers’ colleges were also under-funded from the same computer blunder. However, Auckland had received $54,000 compared with Christchurch’s $37,900, despite the fact that Auckland was dealing with several hundred fewer applications. Mr Gregg said it was extremely frustrating to have to begin again to explain the problem to the new Ministry. Despite the selection process being in full swing, teachers’ colleges still do not know how many teachers they will be training. The student quota — usually announced late in August — is unknown.

The principal of the Christchurch College of Education, Dr Colin Knight, said the delay was causing tremendous staff morale problems at the college. The college was unable to plan courses for next year without student numbers. Between 20 and 30 staff were expected to be made redundant but who this would involve depended oh what courses were offered. Knight said he exnected

secondary student teacher quotas would be unrealistically low. There were 980 vacancies advertised in the latest “Education Gazette,” but only 450 people were trained as secondary teachers this year. He predicted a bigger secondary teacher shortage was looming. He said the quota would be based on a mistaken assumption that secondary rolls would continue to fall. “Secondary rolls are at their lowest ebb in 20 years but what is tended to be overlooked is the number of students being encouraged to stay at school,” he said. While teachers’ college staff were made redundant next year they may be needed the following year. “It appears to be a stop-go policy,” he said. Dr Knight said the college would be forced to turn down students of a high calibre when the college had the staffing and the building capacity to take them.

The students who did not get accepted could become full feelaying students if they could afford it He estimated the fee

would be about $B5OO.