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<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">Secondary teachers have decided that if there is still no satisfactory progress with their collective agreement negotiations over the next five weeks, they will hold a national one-day strike on Thursday 16 March.</span></p>
<p><strong>Read the latest edition of<em> School News</em> magazine <a href="https://www.schoolnews.co.nz/latest-print-issue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HERE</a></strong></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">“After three years of constant disruption, secondary teachers would love nothing more than a settled 2023 for our students and ourselves,” says PPTA Te Wehengarua acting president Chris Abercrombie. </span><span lang="EN-NZ">“We have been in negotiations for a new collective agreement since May last year so there has been plenty of time for the Government to make us an acceptable offer. Sadly, that hasn’t happened.”</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">PPTA’s 20,000 members want salaries increased to match inflation, more guidance staff to work with increasing numbers of rangatahi struggling with mental health and societal issues, </span><span lang="EN-NZ">greater recognition of kaiako Māori, and effective controls on workload.</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">Abercrombie said the shortage of secondary teachers was worsening. “Improvements to both teacher salaries and working conditions are essential to keep experienced and skilled teachers </span><span lang="EN-NZ">in the job, attract top graduates to become secondary teachers and encourage thousands of ex-teachers to return to the profession they left.</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">“Every secondary school student deserves a specialist teacher, someone who knows their subject inside out. However, schools are finding it more and more difficult to recruit </span><span lang="EN-NZ">subject specialist teachers and unless the Government pays secondary teachers more and ensures our workloads become manageable, the education of the next generation of secondary students </span><span lang="EN-NZ">will be seriously compromised. Our ākonga and our country deserve much better.”</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">To highlight the shortage of teachers and in protest at the lack of progress with negotiations, from the start of this school term PPTA members are refusing to give up their </span><span lang="EN-NZ">scheduled marking and planning time to cover classes for the lack of day relievers or because there are teacher vacancies that cannot be filled because no-one is applying for the jobs.</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-NZ">“Up until now, teachers’ goodwill has been used to mask the growing secondary teacher shortage. That is no longer an option. It is time for the Government to move away from insubstantial platitudes </span><span lang="EN-NZ">and to take the real and meaningful steps that are needed before the widening cracks in the system become a crisis.”</span></p>

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