Below we will take a look at what’s been going on in the field of education this month, whether it’s nursery, private kindergarten or university.
Striking Teachers
Teachers in New Zealand are going on the largest strike that there has been in the country for some time. The government has announced the wellbeing budget, which is in response to teachers’ requests for higher pay and shorter working hours. The government has to balance the fiscal policy against what the needs of teachers are. Unions have been trying to negotiate with the government on behalf of the teachers; however, the education minister Chris Hopkins has announced a 1.2 billion dollar investment over the next four years. This has been taunted as the biggest offer made to teachers in a decade. The difficulties the two sides are facing are that teachers require more funding, but there simply is not the money available to support this. Sluggish growth and higher living costs have caused the demand in public services to increase and therefore putting a strain on budgets. It’s not just teachers that are arguing for higher pay, as nurses and doctors and some court officials have also demanded pay increases too.
Immigration
Immigration is a contentious issue around the world and here in New Zealand, it is no different. There has been quite a large delay on student visas which has now made the immigration service investigate to see if there is any way of speeding up the processing time. There have been reports that some student visas have been turned away in order to meet standards set by the government. The delay that has been encountered has been around since 2017 and seems to have negatively impacted processing times in subsequent years. Slow visa processing is not only bad for New Zealand’s economy, it also does not help the students that require them to be able to further their studies.
Some of the delay has also been put down to the increased complexity and sheer volume of applications from students from India and China. Indian students have increased by 42% whilst Chinese students have seen a 21% increase. The delay has also meant that students have had to defer their enrolments to later years or chose to study elsewhere. The loss of revenue that further education institutions will face could be up to 34 million dollars. This problem will need rectifying, as international education for New Zealand is valued at 5.1 billion dollars.
History Teaching
The prime minister of New Zealand has regarded the teaching of history in schools as common sense. She feels particularly strong about the subject and thinks that it should be mandatory and not a choice in schools. It’s not just the importance of history the prime minister is fixed on, she believes that all subjects are important, and history needs to be viewed just as important as the others.
Ranking Universities
The universities in New Zealand have been rated as highly desirable in the world rankings. The top university in New Zealand sits in 88th place out of 1000 universities, just dropping slightly down from its ranking in 2019. However, most other universities in New Zealand have managed to improve on their rankings, which is good news for New Zealand on a whole. Obviously, the universities in the United States and the UK have topped the rankings, but the improvements that universities in New Zealand have made show that the country’s reforms are making universities head in the right direction.
Adult Education
Adult education provides someone who is not of traditional school age the chance to go back and learn something new. Adult music lessons have become very popular with those who have decided to learn a new skill, showing that it is never too late to learn something that you may not have done when you were younger. As we have mentioned above, New Zealand’s universities are doing increasingly well amongst the world’s rankings, which will, in turn, attract more adults into further education.
Early Years Strike Action
New Zealand has been suffering from strike action in the educational sector for sometime now, but teachers who work in early years settings have also been considering strike action. As teachers in primary and secondary school may have won some concessions with the government, this has led to staff in early years settings to highlight the fact that the government has underspent by the tune of 75 million dollars. The government has argued that there was no shortage of funding, but there were fewer children enrolling in early childhood settings.
The belief is that the government has been too focussed on the primary and secondary sector and not given the early years settings the time needed to assess their funding. There have been years of underfunding in this sector and this is why the unions are pushing for better pay and conditions for staff working in these settings as it has been argued there has been ten years of underfunding going on. The government has ruled out making more money available, but this has once again been focussed mainly on primary and secondary settings.
Pacific Education Boost
The New Zealand government has given a boost to education in the Pacific region for language and health. Communities have seen initiatives that have been introduced to help Pacific people lift their own wellbeing. It has been argued that these budgets will help to develop and enhance Pacific values. The budget has been rumoured to be in the region of 27.4 million over four years to make sure that Pacific families and their students have the availability and opportunity to pursue education.
Although there has been a lot of mention of strike action, there has been some positive news this month with regards to New Zealand’s university rankings, and overall, the education in New Zealand seems to be on an upward swing.