Teachers Council Blocks Good Teachers

While the Teachers Council registers a man convicted of violence against an 11-year-old, it won't register teachers with speeding fines or those who've been teaching overseas, ACT New Zealand Education Spokesman Deborah Coddington revealed today.

"I am receiving letters from frustrated teachers who are fed up with the delays, the additional costs, and the nonsense that the Teachers Council - Trevor Mallard's baby - is making them endure," Miss Coddington said.

"One teacher wrote to me saying he'd been waiting two months for a reply to his renewal application, even though his fees were banked immediately. Unable to speak with the person handling his application, it was only through this teacher's own efforts he was able to discover that his four speeding fines `needed further explanation'. The fines went back to December 1994.

"This teacher told me his case was not unusual. `I have spoken to several colleagues who have experienced similar time delays', he said.

"Another woman wrote to me concerned about her son, a New Zealand trained and registered primary school teacher, who taught here for three years before going to Britain and teaching there.

"However, upon applying to renew his registration - and paying $120 - this young man has been told that having not completed two years of uninterrupted teaching in New Zealand within the last five years it appears he can't be registered.

"This is complete lunacy. We have a shortage of good teachers in New Zealand, and a chronic shortage of male teachers in primary and intermediate schools.

"We should be encouraging our young professionals to come home, not punishing them when they do.

"Trevor Mallard should act immediately so that teachers in positions similar to these two are not stuffed around when all they want to do is get on with their job of teaching," Miss Coddington said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

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