Ministry job cuts won't boost student achievement

Ministry job cuts will not boost student achievement

The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi (PSA) says cutting one hundred jobs at the Ministry of Education will not improve services or bring greater efficiencies.

Staff at the Ministry of Education were told today that one hundred positions are to be slashed between now and June next year. This is on top of the 300 or so vacancies the Ministry is currently carrying and not filling.

“The Ministry says it wants to lift achievement across the education system, but more job cuts will not bring this about,” says PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott.

“The Ministry has been through a dozen reviews in the past three years, some of which are ongoing. One would have thought that after so many endless reviews, the Ministry would be an effective and nimble beast. Yet it has been criticised as one of the worst government departments in a recent TransTasman report.

“The top-down nature of these reviews provides little scope for meaningful engagement with staff – and ineffective change as a result. The cycle of endless reviews leaves staff unsettled, operating in uncertain environments, and spending more time on justifying their positions than doing the work they are paid to do, says Brenda Pilott.”

“Services will also suffer as a result of these job cuts. The Prime Minister says he wants more schools to teach Mandarin yet, as a result of its approach to not fill vacancies, the Ministry’s national office team supporting the learning languages area of the curriculum has shrunk from three people to one.

The Ministry says the job losses will not add to already heavy workloads but staff are sceptical about this.
“The Ministry appears to have no strategy for how these cuts will be made; all it has said is that vacancies will not be filled.

This means some teams will be hit harder than others and workloads will explode due to them being under-resourced,” says Brenda Pilott.

ENDS

© Scoop Media