Incompetent teachers will be registered

The Education Review Office confirmed today that new teachers it regards as ineffective are likely to be registered anyway, says National’s Education spokesman Bill English.

Earlier this year, an ERO investigation found that one third of second-year primary and half of second-year secondary teachers are not effective.

ERO officials at a select committee hearing this morning confirmed the likelihood that the Teachers Council will register these teachers.

Mr English says it’s scandalous that these teachers will be at the head of the classroom when the Government’s own officials have said they aren’t up to it.

“The Minister of Education and his officials are sitting on their hands while hundreds of teachers, who aren’t up to the job, are officially given the right to teach our children.”

“Parents have the right to expect that the person responsible for their child’s education will be competent and effective.

“If these ineffective teachers are in front of classes next year, about 20,000 students will have their education blighted. The Minister and the Teachers Council must move urgently to protect these young New Zealanders,” says Mr English.

© Scoop Media

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.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>