Government's Collaboration Plan Gets Cautious Tick From Principals
‘The Government’s announcement to work collaboratively with the sector to harness leadership strengths and the skills of
expert teachers has the potential to lift the achievement of more children,’ said Philip Harding, President of the New
Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF).
The announcement to invest in change principals, executive principals, lead teachers and expert teachers is intended to
help retain experienced, high quality teaching professionals to benefit a much wider cohort of students than just those
in their own schools.
‘The initiative has the potential to make a real difference. Its success will depend on how ‘achievement’ is measured,
how the school and teacher selection process is developed, whether schools and their communities will welcome and own
the intervention, whether Boards of Trustees will agree to release their expert teachers and principals, and how the
operational details shape up. That will require major input from the profession or this idea will be a complete waste
of money,’ said Harding.
The plan omits to acknowledge that children spend fifteen percent of their time in school and sixty percent of the
variance around under achievement relates to ‘outside the school’ influences such as socio-economic issues.
‘With a parallel plan to address the ‘out of school’ influences on achievement, this initiative has the potential to be
truly transformational,’ said Harding.
ENDS