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Stirring it up

Written by Leon Benade

Reflective thoughts about New Zealand schools

Teachers' Council Registration Fees

Posted on 02 March 2010 - 01:54 PM

Fees to rise by an astounding 83%!!

I received the notification today that the fee to renew a Practicing Certificate will rise to about $192 ex GST in July 2010. This sounds like an increase from $120 to around $220 (assume 15% GST)!  

In the email, Dr Peter Lind takes up a new role as spin doctor, justifying this blatant increase. He claims that this fee is 'highly comparable' to that of other 'professional bodies' and that 'we compare very favourably to other teacher professional bodies in Australia and the United Kingdom'.

However, what he does not factor in is whether salaries are comparable. I dare say that most NZ teachers will feel stung by this drastic increase. One could argue that $70 a year for registration as a NZ teacher is not onerous. Perhaps then the charge should be annualised.

The real problem, though, is what it is that costs so much to demand a hike of over 80%. The single biggest cost factor he notes is a 306% increase in legal fees associated with 'Professional Standards' administration. Does this mean the TC is dragging more wayward teachers through a disciplinary process? Does this mean teaching quality is improving? 

The reality is that we will have heard & read several media reports over the past few years of TC ineffectiveness: stories of the art teacher allowed to continue teaching despite posting hard core porn onto the web; late in 2007, The New Zealand Herald reported on a range of teachers with misconduct findings against them still teaching, including a known sex offender allowed to re-register as a teacher; there was the 2008 case of the teacher moonlighting as a prostitute that seemingly the Teachers' Council allowed the school and its Board to resolve; and the story of Rachel Whitwell, a teacher who posed nude for the Australian Penthouse late last year, & who is still listed as having Full Registration. 

One of the cost factors Dr Lind quotes is the 'approval & monitoring of initial teacher education programmes'. Perhaps if our money was spent to create processes & systems to ensure that the quality of incoming trainees was significantly improved, then we might end up with a profession that is highly sought after, rather than being a last resort as it is for so many. 

  


Comments

Comment by Mario Barbafiera on 02 March 2010 - 09:40 PM:
As an Immigrant Teacher I have had to deal regularly with this bunch of fools initially over a period of ten years when I had to keep resubmitting my permanent residence proof "as they did not keep these records"! Being forced to belong to this "club" is one of the few things that really irritates me about being a teacher in New Zealand. I thought freedom of association (or not) is a basic right guaranteed in the Human Rights Charter. Obviously human rights have no place in teaching...

Comment by Pat Newman - could you put this one up without my typos rather than first post. Ta on 03 March 2010 - 01:34 PM:
Interesting reading other people's ill informed comments.... I am a member of the NZTC Council, elected to represent principals. On the NZTC are elected Teacher Representatives NZSTA Representatives, NZEI, Early Childhood, PPTA and as well Ministerial Appointments who in my opinion fulfil a more than valuable role. For your information, I personally get a pittance to read the material, about 15 hrs a month, but get nothing for the 3 - 4 days a month I give up to work on behalf of my profession. I still have to make up those days at school as well. I state the above so my credentials are known. (1)NZTC is not a Club. It is our professions regulatory body, that ensures that those teaching are suitable to do this. (2)It also monitors and ensures that all the Teacher Training Programmes are up to scratch. This is an increasingly time consuming and costly role. (3)We have increasing numbers of teachers who come to our attention, due to competency. It’s not a simple matter. We have people who have got to this stage because of medical problems, or stress from various situations including home and family problems. We have people who are incompetent, but it can be addressed. We have Senior staff/principals who state one month in a formal Appraisal how well a person is going and three months later lodge a competency case. Every case has to be investigated to ensure fairness, to ensure children are protected. We have numbers of teachers who have gone through this process, who we require to be monitored until we are satisfied that all is well. I smiled somewhat sadly when I read Mario's comment, but a huge amount of our work is sifting through the myriad of applications from overseas people who say they are trained to teach. This has nothing to do with Freedom of Association. It is to do with ensuring within the regulations that we are bound by, that things such as overseas certificates supplied are kosher, that people actually have attended the universities named. That the qualifications they hold do have equivalency to NZ etc. If a person has to keep sending their residency certificate in, in my view, too bad. It is not a right to be a teacher in NZ. It is an honour, and one that needs to be guarded. The government gives just over 100k to the cost of running a 6million dollar organisation. Although legally we are a Crown Entity, we are actually the professions own body that many of us in NZEI and PPOTA fought for years to get, rather than having the Ministry running this aspect of our profession. To do this costs money. To eventually become and independent body, divorced from the government, costs money. We are a profession and all professions have such bodies from the nurses to doctors to lawyers. Yes its an increase of 87%, but the reality is it is an increase of about $30.00 per year. Just over 200.00 total cost for three years. In real terms, about 25 Jugs of Beer, or 20 bottles of cheap plonk. Far below the cost of any other such professional body. I pay it the same as anyone else. If you want to be a profession, and call yourself professionals, it costs. About $70.00 per year, or less than $1.50 per week. A small price to pay. Pat Newman

Comment by Leon Benade on 04 March 2010 - 09:01 AM:
Thank you for contributing, Pat, and sharing your experience. I'm sure many will read it with interest!

Comment by Pat Newman on 04 March 2010 - 09:48 PM:
Meant to mention the NZTC is seriously looking at annualising the cost of the Practising Certificate.Again what on the face of it is a simple thing, in practice isn;t. By law your practising cert is issued for 3 years. what happens if annualised, and they pay just the first year and nothing the second? It would also require overhaul of system. However it is seriously being looked at by the Council

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