Anne Tolley MP National Party Education Spokeswoman

28 September 2008

Teacher Council improvements slow in coming

National Party Education spokeswoman Anne Tolley says the Education Minister must say whether he is satisfied with the way the Teachers Council is enforcing the competency among those in front of our classrooms.

"Reports today say there have been 22 complaints about teacher competency. Principals have also complained of unwittingly playing pass the parcel with sub-par teachers.

"In response to these reports, the Teachers Council says its policing of the problems is 'improving'.

"But we've heard the assurances before. The Government promised it was on top of the issues."

Mrs Tolley is referring to a secret report on the supervision of trainee teachers obtained and released by National in October 2004.

At that time it showed the Government had glossed over serious problems with the Teachers Council and that the council could not guarantee that all teacher-training programmes were producing well-prepared new teachers.

That four-year-old report came hot on the heels of an ERO report which found that one third of second-year primary teachers and half of second-year secondary teachers were ineffective.

"Four years on, and we're experiencing a case of déjà vu. More worryingly, the problems that Labour promised to fix, remain unresolved.

"After nine years, it's pretty obvious they won't be."

ENDS

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