New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) President Angela Roberts compares the Ministry of Education's Novopay management to their double dealing on the secondary school staffing group.

Double trouble

When I saw the “novodump” Novopay documents released by the Ministry of Education under the Official Information Act (OIA), I got déjà vu all over again.

Before I became president I was one of the PPTA representatives on the secondary school staffing group (SSSG) which was set up after the 2011 settlement of the Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement to consider members’ concerns about burgeoning class sizes.

Along with representatives from the Ministry of Education, the School Trustees Association, the Secondary Principals’ Association and the Secondary Principals' Council, I attended a number of meetings where we considered data about the extent and location of over-sized classes in New Zealand secondary schools. We considered the research about the impact large classes had on student learning. We didn’t always agree but we did conclude unanimously that the current staffing formula wasn’t always fair and that it would be useful for the parties to continue working on a needs-based formula.

It all seemed very promising.

Then a few months later the 2012 Budget bombshell about increasing class sizes hit. Talk about double agents!