National threatens disruption in schools

"Nationals education policy will cause major disruption in our schools and do nothing to improve students' learning," said Council of Trade Unions president, Ross Wilson."National talks about providing more choice in education but will impose bulk funding of teachers salaries on principals and parents who sit on school boards."

"Like most of National's policies, bulk funding has failed. It failed here in the 1990s. It also failed miserably in the UK under Margaret Thatcher, and was particularly damaging for schools in the poorest areas. it wasn't working so a Labour-led government scrapped it."

Bulk-funding gives a school one pot of money from which it has to pay its capital and running costs and its staff. The only way to cuts costs is to reduce salaries because other goods and services come at a fixed price.

"Bulk funded schools in the 1990s saved money by hiring inexperienced teachers, which harms rather than helps students' learning."

"Teachers are professional people, doing a fine job. Just as they are getting on top of problems with the NCEA National threatens to disrupt schools with policies like this," Ross Wilson concluded.