With legislation passed, it is now full steam ahead for EDUCANZ to replace the New Zealand Teachers Council. In response to this, the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) is proposing a boycott of EDUCANZ and has asked all branches to run a ballot on this idea.

Why boycott? It is a flawed legislation. Teachers can no longer vote for representation on their own professional body, the aspirational code of ethics is being replaced with a patronising code of conduct and has a major focus on auditing teacher appraisal processes. Although, to be honest, I do see the positive side of auditing appraisal processes as well – how many of these are actually being done as a tick box affair as compared to operating in a way that helps us improve as professionals? Still a boycott would aim to build public pressure to force changes to the legislation.

We will still, however, all have to pay EDUCANZ to renew our teacher registration (and early signs are that fees will rise quite a bit) as it is illegal for us to be in the classroom without this. So effectively, if we boycott EDUCANZ we will give them money to complete their aims but remove any possibility of our voice having an influence in what that aim looks like in practice. Continue reading →