New Zealand Education System Being Undermined By National Government Policies. 21 November 2012.
Thank God for ‘Campbell Live’ on New Zealand’s Channel 3, and the series of discussions which have been held on this show regarding NZ teachers not getting paid.
If it weren’t for John Campbell tackling this most pertinent issue in a very determined way, the Minister of Education Hekia Parata and her celebrity PM, who is now swanning around Cambodia and Myanmar, getting more business deals instead of addressing the issue of our teachers working at home without pay, then nothing would be done. These unscrupulous and uncaring politicians will not get away with this very lightly, with John Campbell behind the scene demanding that the rights of these teachers to get paid is addressed.
Some teachers have not been paid for almost 4 months. And meanwhile, Hekia Parata, from the Ministry of Education manages to distance herself from the debacle. You can scarcely see her these days, neither hide nor hair, when it comes to talking about her new systems for education. Or John Key, who, as I said, is overseas yet again, anxious to tread in the walkway of President Obama, who visited these parts only a week ago or less. John Key always jumps at the opportunity to show himself in an international arena, where he pretends that he is enhancing NZ’s economic interests in order to benefit our country. Maybe so, but his deals are always corporate ones which affect only the already rich.
These new school systems of Key and Parata include dumping many good schools together to save money, and this Novopay system, not to mention many other unmentionables, all deemed to reduce our standard of education in the long run.
The Ministry of Education is likely to be sued over this cock-up.
Is The ‘No Pay’ for teachers on ‘Novopay’ a deliberate ploy to undermine our school system even more? Perhaps the idea of Hekia Parata and John Key is to let the national education system fall into such terrible decline, because of teachers not being paid over several months and who subsequently leave the profession, so that they can then step in, close down even more schools, and lay more teachers off?
One poor woman on Campbell Live tonight, whose husband has terminal cancer and cannot work any more in his job at a Wanganui School, said that the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, is ‘a disgrace’ and that she should be made to quit her portfolio. This man with the cancer needs to get his pay-roll details from Novopay so that he can apply for a sickness benefit. If he does not supply the details, then Winz will not give him a benefit to feed his family. His wife said that they have borrowed from the bank to make ends meet, but that their loan has to be paid back at the end of the month. “I don’t know how we are going to do this”, she said, distraught and beginning to cry.
I agree with her that Hekia Parata is ‘a disgrace’ and that she should quit her job as Minister of Education. Hekia Parata, who, as a Maori from the East Coast, should have a heart for what is good for children and their education, clearly has no idea. She has allowed the bungling of teachers’ pay, and no pay in many cases, to continue for many months, and her plan to dismantle our education system is simply an evil concept.
My Blog 