Teachers with a conscience should leave PPTA

act-new-zealand

Tue Aug 04 2015 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Teachers with a conscience should leave PPTA

Tuesday, 4 August 2015, 11:47 am
Press Release: ACT New Zealand

Press release: ACT New Zealand
August 4, 2015. 11:20am

“The PPTA’s blacklisting of a student teacher because he taught briefly at a Whangarei Partnership School is a shameful abuse of union power and teachers with a conscience should leave the union,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“It is a sad day when old-fashioned union muscle is used to damage the prospects of a student teacher because the union disagrees with the policies of an elected government.

“The blacklisted te reo and music teacher, and former naval officer, exemplifies the type of role model that has so much to offer to Northland students. The PPTA’s opposition to Partnership Schools and all people associated with them means state school students are missing out from this man’s potential contribution to their learning.

“The student teacher in question was inspired to teach at the Whangarei Partnership School when he encountered some of its students in his navy role, and saw ‘something special going on’.

“Perhaps if critics of the policy visited the schools and saw the difference being made to students’ lives, they wouldn’t be so keen on marginalising Partnership School kids and staff.

“I happen to be a member of the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand. If I heard the Institute was behaving so childishly towards innovation in the profession and engineers joining it, I’d be out like a shot.

“One wonders how the teaching profession can expect to compare itself with lawyers, accountants, doctors and architects when its union behaves like 1970s’ wharfies.

“Any teacher with a conscience ought to seriously reconsider their association with the PPTA’s disgraceful persecution of this student teacher.”

[1] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11491570

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