Push to scrap Teaching Council fees stoke controversy

<p>Teaching Council CE Lesley Hoskin had confirmed&colon; &&num;8220&semi;The fee is doubling to &dollar;157 every year starting February 2021&period; This equates to &dollar;3 per week&comma; an increase of &dollar;1&period;60 per week to what teachers are already paying&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The backlash has been substantial&comma; with teachers making a vote of no confidence in the council this week&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p class&equals;"">Post Primary Teachers&&num;8217&semi; Association president&comma; Jack Boyle&comma; has declined to comment on the vote until he had discussed the matter with his staff&period; However&comma; he did inform <em>RNZ<&sol;em> that the no-confidence ballot followed the council&&num;8217&semi;s announcement on Budget day that its fees would rise&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The union is calling for key resignations from the Teaching Council&comma; following the vote&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The fee hike was instigated following news the government would be cutting funding&comma; which previously accounted for around 60 percent of the council&&num;8217&semi;s expenses&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The New Zealand National Party has jumped on the bandwagon&comma; claiming it would scrap teacher registration fees altogether and fund the Teaching Council directly&period; National’s Education spokesperson Nikki Kaye said&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;New Zealand has had long-standing teacher supply and retention issues&period; This is a small way that we can reduce costs for teachers and is one of a number of policies National intends to implement to reinforce the value of educators in our society&comma;” Ms Kaye says&period; A National Government would get rid of teacher registration fees and instead pay the Teaching Council directly on an ongoing basis&comma; which will initially be around &dollar;16 million a year&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;