Bureaucracy gone mad in teacher qualifications debacle

“The education bureaucracy has gone mad when teachers qualifications held by the Teachers Council cannot be assessed by the Ministry of Education because of the Privacy Act,” says National’s education spokesman Nick Smith.

“To require over 10,000 teachers to get new copies of their qualifications for the Ministry of Education when another Government agency - the Teachers Council - already holds the information is just lunatic.

“It is as though the Government is so resentful of the pay increase won by teachers through arbitration that they vindictively want to make it as hard as possible for teachers.

“This sort of petty bureaucracy is killing teaching. It is a distraction at a critical time that takes secondary teachers away from preparing students for exams.

“The Education Minister Trevor Mallard must step in and end this fiasco. Teachers are already buried in the paper war. Only a fool could defend this nonsense,” said Dr Smith.

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