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Lynne Simpson
The following article is reprinted with permission of the Nova Scotia Teachers' Union. It appeared in the February 28, 1997, issue of The Teacher.
New Zealand once had one of the most respected school systems in the world. It is the home, for example, of Marie Clay and the Reading Recovery program. New Zealand's teachers are so respected worldwide, that their teacher publication, Eduvac, is full of overseas advertisements trying to attract teachers away from New Zealand.
Today, the sad fact is that new teachers rarely last more than two years in the system before they leave.
Last year, I spent seven months in New Zealand with my husband who was conducting research in physics at Victoria University in Wellington. I was on leave from teaching in Nova Scotia and living on a much reduced budget, but our mutual goal was to have the experience of a lifetime—and we did.
By sheer coincidence, it turned out that our hosts, or "land persons," in New Zealand were Hugh Price, founder of Price Milburn Publishers and Beverly Randall, prominent author and originator of PM storybooks—the backbone of the Reading Recovery program in Halifax schools.
I was awestruck by the opportunity to become friend and assistant to this wonderful pair. Price is now retired but extremely active politically as a passionate objector to the "New Right" political scene that emerged in 1984, when "Rogernomics" came on the scene.
Rogernomics is named after Sir Roger Douglas, who served as New Zealand's finance minister from 1984 to 1988. Sir Douglas was responsible for one of the most comprehensive restructuring programs ever attempted by a government anywhere. The program included cutting income tax rates in half, deregulating wide sectors of the New Zealand economy, ending farm and business subsidies, and restructuring and privatizing most state-owned enterprises. Sir Douglas overhauled the operating philosophy of government agencies and departments to make them run as competition-oriented, bottom-line business enterprises. This included turning public education into a business.
Today, New Zealand teachers are regarded as "education outputters" whose buttons have been pressed for maximum efficiency—full speed at all times. There is no such thing as release time. There are no specialist teachers at the elementary level. There are many social problems—including racial tensions and poverty—that are not being addressed.
Schools are funded through a system called "bulk funding." Based on enrolment, bulk funding forces schools to compete for business. Teachers work extra hours to provide extracurricular activities and programs to attract more students to their schools. Public education has come to rely on strong parent-teacher organizations. However, schools in impoverished or low population areas often miss out.
Although I had been determined to have a relaxing year—and hence had not applied for a work permit—it wasn't long before curiosity overcame my better judgement and I volunteered to help at a local inner city school.
Armed with some idea of the country's present economic and educational background, I entered the school system in November 1995 as an unpaid Reading Recovery teacher.
Mine was a small school surrounded by concrete and businesses. Built in the bungalow style of tropical schools, the school was in the shape of a quadrangle, with a central play area and open verandahs leading into the classrooms. Students often worked outdoors in good weather. The school served a multi-ethnic population that was 60 per cent Maori, 30 per cent Island—Cook Islanders, Fijian, Samoan and Tongan, and the remaining 10 percent "Pakeha" (Maori for white New Zealanders, which literally means "white turnip").
The school's 15 teachers are, for the most part, younger than the average Nova Scotia teacher. They are extremely well-trained, highly efficient, idealistic, fun-loving, child-centered and burned-out.
There is no time for teachers to meet socially or professionally. But there are frequent, frantic and short business meetings, held on the run during the 10 minutes before the school day begins. Typically, the principal conducts meetings like this:
"Helen, I'm sorry I have to reduce your time by 0.5 per cent until the end of this term. We'll hope our bulk funding request will yield the increase we need to get you back to your former hours by next term."
"Jan, it's your turn to hit the banks this week. We're almost out of duplicating paper."
"Peter, I'll try to spell you in keeping an eye on those four who had the bust-up yesterday. Perhaps one of them could accompany me on my music rounds today."
The principal's music rounds consisted of visiting classrooms, playing guitar and singing with the kids to give his overworked teachers breathing space.
I found it sad.
Yet, it was almost laughable sometimes. Standing in a tiny photocopying room and scrounging for a few backs of old business forms on which to photocopy, a couple of students who'd had a huge fight, and were in a holding room, were barely being held back (by me) from trying to kill each other until a staff member had a second free to deal with the situation. It was chaos!
The New Zealand school years ends in December. We headed off for some glorious travel over the Christmas holidays. When I returned to school for the new term in early February, Kerry, the school's vice-principal, Reading Recovery and Grade 1 teacher, had left teaching.
While in New Zealand, a campaign was underway to hire 1,000 teachers from overseas to make up the shortfall for the new term. I was offered two jobs. The prediction is that this shortfall will increase significantly over the next several years.
What scares me is that New Zealand is eight years along the same road that our government is following. Must we, like sheep, be led astray?
We loved New Zealand, above all, we loved New Zealanders—the feistiest, most resourceful, most idealistic and fun-loving people you could ever meet. We made wonderful friends and want to go back, but not as teachers. Not until the country's incredibly destructive trends are reversed.
New Zealand politics
Proportional representation further muddies waters
The New Zealand Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system was used for the first time in the general election held October 12, 1996. Under MMP, each voter votes twice: once for the political party of his or her choice and once for a candidate to serve as MP in his or her home riding.
Parliament usually has 120 MPs. Sixty MPs represent 60 general electorates (seats) and are chosen by voters on the general electoral roll. Five MPs represent five Maori electorates and are chosen by voters on the Maori electoral roll. Fifty-five MPs are called "list MPs" and are elected to parliament from lists of candidates nominated by political parties.
The number of MPs from each party depends on its share of party votes. However, a political party must win at least five per cent of party votes or win at least one electorate seat through the electorate vote to receive a proportional allocation of seats in parliament.
The October election saw the National Party, led by Prime Minister Jim Bolger, win 44 seats, 17 short of the number required for his government to form a majority.
The Labour Party, which engineered New Zealand's massive restructuring during the late 1980s, won 37 seats. New Zealand First took 17 seats, a five-party coalition calling itself the Alliance Party won 13 seats, ACT New Zealand took eight and United New Zealand won one seat.
Coalition talks ground on for almost two months until December 10, when a deal was signed by the National and New Zealand First parties.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who becomes deputy prime minister and treasurer, has indicated that a number of concessions were obtained from the National Party in the areas of health and education.
