National plan puts immigrant teachers on fast track

TOP EARLY childhood teachers who have trained overseas and want to work in New Zealand are put off by our "ludicrous" re-training system, say frustrated insiders leaving centres so desperate for staff that they are hiring substandard teachers.

The National Party plans to fast-track teachers into classrooms if they have an approved overseas qualification but the teachers' union has raised concerns that tactic could "undermine quality teaching".

At the moment, even teachers who have trained in countries such as Canada or the United States either have to start from scratch and complete a three-year degree or do a one-year course, before starting work here. The retraining time is much longer than that required of overseas-trained primary or secondary school teachers.

National would slash that retraining time, putting experienced and qualified teachers into centres after an intensive six-week course.

Nobody knows how many extra teachers the proposed change could attract because relevant figures are not collected by NZQA but Auckland teacher recruiter Maryjane Walker expects she alone would end up dealing with "several hundred" extra applicants.

Walker, who heads The Education Company, says under the current system "less suitable" immigrants who struggle with the English language and NZ classroom culture, are snapping up the jobs.

"Some of [these teachers] are really good quality and some of them are not," she says. "They don't engage, they don't play with the children. Not all cultures engage in playing with children."

Walker says the six-week course would attract highly-qualified, experienced teachers like the UK woman with 15 years of teaching and managing experience who walked away after Walker told her about our system.

But Frances Nelson, head of teachers' union NZEI, is concerned about the lack of details provided by National. She says the six-week course has the potential to undermine quality teaching.

"The way in which we teach in NZ is very, very different," she says. "We would be keen to look at what is meant by a six-week training course and what [qualifications and experience] you would have to have to be able to do that."

Nelson says there is a "very, very tight" teacher shortage, meaning some inexperienced teachers are landing supervisors' jobs that they cannot cope with.

- © Fairfax NZ News