Skilled education workforce essential to Christchurch rebuild

4 August 2011
For Immediate Release

Skilled education workforce essential to Christchurch rebuild

The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says special measures and processes must be put in place to ensure that Christchurch retains a skilled education workforce now and into the future.

New figures show that more than 26,000 people have moved out of Christchurch since the earthquakes, and school enrolment figures for July show that a third of those students who left, have not returned.

NZEI is still waiting on figures from the Ministry of Education as to what impact that will have on schools and early childhood centres.

NZEI President Ian Leckie says understandably there is a lot of anxiety among teaching and support staff who have been working tirelessly to provide stable learning environments for their students while battling their own personal loss and disruption.”

“The situation in Christchurch is a one-off. We would urge the Ministry of Education to come up with a very different set of rules and processes to respond to it and not simply apply normal staffing and funding models to what is a very abnormal set of circumstances”

“We need to ensure that Christchurch continues to have a valued and highly-skilled workforce as it rebuilds and offer as much additional support to principals, teachers and support staff as possible,” he says.

NZEI believes if the rebuild of Christchurch is to be successful, children must continue to have access to the best quality education. Rebuilding the city’s social infrastructure is just as important as the efforts which are underway to restore its economic infrastructure – schools and early childhood centres are central to that.

NZEI will continue to work closely with principals, teachers and support staff in Christchurch and says there needs to be as much transparency and communication as possible around any decisions that are taken.

ENDS

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