PPTA: Education (Update) Amendment Bill an opportunity lost

The government has ignored children, parents, teachers and other education experts by only making minor and technical changes to the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. This is not a good way to create legislation, and is a lost opportunity to take proactive steps to improve schools and education for New Zealand’s young people.

Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) president Jack Boyle says, “The abundant evidence that full-time online schools fail children has been completely ignored. The Bill also opens the door for corporates to take over educating New Zealand’s children and young people. Teachers, parents and students themselves know that you can’t just take business principles and apply them to education.

“Parents don’t want their children treated like products to be sold to the highest bidder. Every child is an individual with their own hopes and dreams, and you need skilled teaching professionals who care about the welfare of each child to bring out their unique strengths.

“That’s never going to happen by plonking children in front of a computer screen or by turning our kids’ education into a money-making scheme for business,” says Mr Boyle.

“For the minister of education not to seek the advice of the education sector in the first place and to then ignore the evidence of hundreds of submitters is a cavalier approach to making law, to say the least.”