Erica Stanford: Education Minister 'surprised' by backlash to Limited Authority to Teach rule changes

The Education Minister's backing her changes for relief teachers, despite criticism.

Erica Stanford's loosening up the Limited Authority to Teach rules to address shortages - including covering their costs and allowing experts who aren’t qualified teachers and previously registered teachers to work as relievers.

PPTA President Chris Abercrombie says the change will flood classrooms with unregistered relievers.

Stanford says she was surprised there was opposition.

"There are a whole bunch of incredible teachers out there - they don't forget how to teach. And actually, when we've got a real need right now, we've got Orewa College and other colleges rostering home kids - that's the alternative."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
More trouble in our classrooms. Governments moving to all our
unregistered teachers to relieve classes. Unions don't like it, of course.
The claim is classroom is going to be flooded by
teachers not across the curriculum. The minister is Eric at Stanford,
who's with us, Good morning, good wannai. From personal experience,
the amount of time that kids sprend in front of
believers is insane. What's the problem in the education system.
Teachers get sick or we don't have enough teachers.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
What we're experiencing at the moment is a huge increase
in teacher sickness that's compounded with teacher release time that
there's more of, and also teaches out the classrooms through
professional learning and development. And so we've seen us here
a massive spike and the needs for reliever teachers. We
have more reliever teachers, but we've seen a huge spike
in demand for them. And the problem we've got is

(00:43):
a whole lot of great ex teachers out there have
recently retired or recently left, have a baby who we
want to get back in the classroom and networks. That's
what these changes are all about.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
How could the union subject to that if you were
once a teacher, the fact you're no longer registered doesn't
make you not a teacher anymore, does it.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, it's surprising from the unions. Chris Abercromby's a smart guy.
We get on quite well. I don't know why he's
letting the truth get in the way of a good
story this time. I mean, you're exactly right. There are
a whole bunch of incredible teachers out there that don't
forget how to teach. And actually, when we've got a
real need right now, we've got Arewa College, We've got
other colleges who are rostering home kids because that's the alternative,
like we roster home kids, or we say, hey, if

(01:20):
you've been a teacher in the past, in the last
few years, come back, will pay your registration, will pay
you to be a limited ability to teach teacher, come
back into the classroom and help relieve us so that
we can have these kids in class.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Is it a solution? Do they want to do it?
Do we know or not?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, we know because I've been traveling around the country
and I've been talking to teacher associations all over the country.
I was down and a cargo just the other day
amazing principles down there. They said to me Erica, we've
got a whole bunch of great teachers out there, ex teachers.
It's too expensive for them to come back, it's too cumbersome.
They don't want to do all the teacher of fresher courses,
which I worry that there's a limited value in those

(01:57):
as well. We just want to get them back in
the classroom. And you need to trust us, by the way,
mister Stanford, to get these guys back in the classroom,
the ones that are excellent, previous teachers, and I do
trust them.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Your original answer about the illness the time out of
the classroom, is there something profoundly wrong with the system
in itself that teachers aren't in front of the students
more often or not, Well.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
The primary school teachers are out of the classroom more
on classroom release time that was negotiated by the unions.
And of course that's then means we need more relievers
to cover them, and the more relievers we have relieving
more than we suddenly need relievers for the relievers once
they get to about point eight the teachers, So it's
compounding on us and plus what we didn't expect this
here is these massively increased levels of sickness. So it

(02:43):
is an issue. But as I've always said, I can't
magic cup teachers overnight. It takes me what three four
years to train them. This is a short term solution
while we work with the Teaching Council to work on
a more longer term solution, which we're looking at a
reliever teacher special registration to make it cheaper, easier and
faster than back of the cast.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I'm assuming you're up this morning with the Mount Albert
Grammer coverage. The principal says the phone banned different subjects,
same broad area. They've noticed a quote significant shift in
culture since banning cell phones, so that's a win.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I was seeing that all over the country. I
mean there was a little bit of grumbling from especially
kids like my daughter straight away, but actually we're seeing
really positive results from all of the principles I teach
to and actually interestingly the kids as well. And the
biggest difference that as we know from research, is ourt
low sociosomic girls and their mental health, and that's a
massive one.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Appreciate time America stand for the Minister of Education by
the way David Seymour had done. If you pick this
up on Friday. I don't know why I waited for
a Friday to launch it, because I got buried over
the weekend. The allegation is teachers and nicking sandwiches from
kids in the school lunches, and he wants an investigation.
Teachers are stealing the sandwiches. For more from The Mic
Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks they'd be from

(03:57):
six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.