Teachers welcome changes to council

Teachers welcome the Government's decision to reinstate their right to vote for their own representatives on their professional body, education union NZEI Te Riu Roa says.

The Government's Bill proposes to change the name of the Education Council to the Teaching Council and include seven directly-elected representatives on the Council, a move that NZEI Te Riu Roa National Secretary Paul Goulter says will give teachers a voice in decisions about their own profession as doctors and lawyers already have.

"This Bill gives mana to the profession and will give teachers more ownership of their own professional and regulatory body," Paul Goulter says. "We have long advocated for a council with a strong teacher voice. This Bill is a positive step towards our vision of a strong and independent council that can encourage public debate about education based on best evidence about what makes for quality teaching and learning."

The Teaching Council would include seven registered teachers and principals to be directly elected by teachers, and six members appointed by the Minister of Education.

The Bill reverses the National Government's scrapping of direct elections of teachers by teachers to the Council in 2013 which was part of the previous Government's failed approach of low-trust, standardisation and narrow accountability in teaching and learning.

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