Source: Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA)
Voting for the positions of president, junior vice president and Māori vice president opens in early Term 4. PPTA has received two nominations for each of the three positions. Each candidate explains why they should be elected. Voting closes Friday 28 October
Presidential candidates:
Vice President candidates:
Māori Vice President candidates:
Presidential candidate – Miles Langdon
I am running for President because I feel the union needs strong direction. In particular, on the issue of pay, we need salaries that attract and retain the best graduates.
There is an ever-growing proportion of people in Godzone who are finding it more and more difficult just to get by. And the unions have a role to play here, to highlight the inequality in New Zealand and the increasing desperation many are facing.
Teachers, together with Police, nurses, firemen, and ambulance drivers are indispensable state workers all performing a valuable, critical service yet our pay packets do not reflect this. With inflation rampant and daily living costs outstripping wage increases, these critical services are struggling to find capable staff – to the chagrin and detriment of middle-class New Zealanders.
And secondary teaching, with generally university-educated personnel, seems to be the demographic most vulnerable. Salaries are just not competitive enough to lure bright graduates – nor to retain existing ones.
On the issue of workload: the first thing I would address is the, at times, crippling weight brought on by the requirement to write, moderate, assess, and re-assess NCEA internals. Exam marking used to be all done by NZQA – why has it devolved to us?
Class numbers remain high in most schools; this of course could be alleviated with more staff and so attractive remuneration is again a key factor in addressing this.
Presidential candidate – Melanie Webber
We become teachers because we want to make a difference. We care about students, and we want to do all we can to ensure that they have the best opportunity for success. Teaching is an amazing job, but it is also an increasingly unsustainable one. In these uncertain covid times with the additional pressures of huge system change I have felt privileged to be a voice for teachers in expressing the concerns we feel, making sure that our experiences are represented in Wellington, and solutions are found.
ACT party leader David Seymour likes to say, “there’s a reason they’re called the teachers’ union, not the children’s union”. For me this couldn’t be further from the truth. Thanks to the strength of our collective, we remain the voice that stands up for the right for all students to a high quality public education. I am regularly reminded of this when I find myself the only teacher in a room where policy that impacts not only teachers, but the students we teach, is being discussed.
However, whilst believing in the power of public education we cannot allow ourselves to be sacrificed on its altar. PPTA’s vision for education talks of having the space to experience the ‘surprise and delight’ of watching learning unfold. That’s what I want for us. Well that, and being able to afford to live. Pay and conditions must make sure that we are not only attracting teachers into but also retaining them in, the profession.
We know that it is teachers that make the difference in the classroom, and yet all too often we are worn down by administrivia and continual underfunding. We are facing a significant crisis in staffing our schools.
Now more than ever we need to be speaking up for what is right for schools, for students and for teachers. I am proud to be a part of a union that does this, and I would be proud to be chosen again to speak on your behalf.
Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi – With your food
basket and my food basket the people will thrive.
Junior Vice Presidential candidate – Chris Abercrombie
Having had the experience of working in a range of schools and in different areas of Aotearoa New Zealand, I understand and have dealt with the pressures that we face around the motu. The pressures that have been placed onto teachers have continued to increase significantly, with the impact of COVID, the NCEA change package, and the curriculum
refreshes/rebuilds.
Having been Junior Vice President for the previous two years and acting President in Term Two of 2021, I have gained the experience needed to fight for members at this time of great change. I believe that I have been a strong voice, one that reflects the diversity of experience of teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand. I understand the many obstacles and concerns we face in our daily working lives. I’ve also felt an incredible joy and sense of pride that we all have as teachers within our classrooms and schools.
We are all part of the journey; all our teachers are paddling in the same waka. Therefore, we need to ensure that every teacher, regardless of where they are in Aotearoa New Zealand or at what stage of their career they are at, that they are all able to receive the same guidance and support. That they are invested in, so they can help their students, schools, communities, and all of Aotearoa New Zealand to reach their full potential. When we stand together in solidarity, we bring out the best, we can achieve this goal.
Junior Vice Presidential candidate – Stuart Prossor
I am putting myself forward as Junior Vice President focusing on pay and conditions. We felt highly regarded after the 2019 Accord was signed off by the Secretary of Education, as it was a monumental victory achieved by the PPTA.
I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past three and a half years researching the Accord agreement via the OIA; sending copious emails to the MOE and the Teaching Council; engaging in phone conversations with the Minister’s Office; and providing Select Committee submissions challenging the establishment, and in the face of predictable bureaucratic pushbacks, our treatment has been disingenuous.
The necessary Accord ‘high trust environment’ tenet interlocks with its other areas – reducing workload for teachers and principals, our wellbeing, and the removal of performance appraisal. The so-called removal of performance appraisal is a disaster for many schools due to the prescribed involvement and over-interference of the Teaching Council. Our sensible suggestion of renaming it ‘Professional Growth’ has seen some kura still incorporate many elements of this overreaching accountability tool.
In effect, a re-branding, but essentially the same. I want all the Accord tenets revisited and fully agreed upon, enacted in schools, and this can only occur if it is back on the ‘top table.’
As a classroom practitioner, it’s become glaringly apparent that the mental health of our ākonga is negatively affected, and teachers and our colleagues in SLTs are burning out at an ever-increasing and depressing rate. Many teachers describe our job to me as overwhelming due to the incessant controlled and demanding workload.
We can’t afford to be individual school branches constantly fighting for particular conditions. We should regroup as an entire membership of thousands and, like the best unions, bind together. For me, the respect between all teachers and SLTs requires recognition that continual proper adult negotiated Korero is imperative. As a PPTA, we collectively need to be together in the trenches, continually facing up to and calling out whatever government is in office at the time, fighting for our fundamental rights of pay and conditions. Ngā mihi nunui.
Māori Vice Presidential candidate – Vincent Hapi
My strength is not an individual, my strength and valour is my family and Tainui and NZPPTA.
He waka eke noa Māori Vice President, ko te hāpai ō. We are all on this waka together.
The role of “Māori vice president” is a platform for teacher voices to carry the aspirations of kaiako māori to work collaboratively through the lens of mana orite co-leadership through a Treaty of Waitangi lens to collectively work in partnership. I believe that kaiako māori are the central pillar for the future of education and to ensure that their voices are heard to help find solutions for the challenges of workload issues and navigating through COVID19 online teaching.
I believe the role of MVP is a kaitiaki for all teachers to provide pastoral care and support. As a kaiako māori whanaungatanga relationship with all kaiako māori irrespective of where they originate from is important enabling me to connect and easily relate to the aspirations of all kaiako māori – it is healthy to have a point of difference that gives added value and mana enhancing to voice our kaupapa.
With my governance and humble leadership experience I can make a difference to convey mana enhancing and strengthening relationships, exhibiting humility in leadership, knowledge of māori world and pakeha world as well as our treaty obligations. Te Hapai ō is a voice of confidence to guide, to lead and to bring us together exemplifying a humble distinguished leader of authority
In closing, Sir James Henare state:
Kua tawhiti kē to haerenga mai kia kore e haere tonu,
We have come too far not to go further”
He nui rawa ōu mahi, kia kore e mahi nui tonu.”
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari he toa takitini
Kei aku rangatira kei ngaa mataawaka o ngaa hau e wha ko koutou tooku kaha, tooku taituara. He waka eke noa Māori Vice President, “Ko te hāpai ō”. Kei runga noa atu taatou katoa i te waka e koke anga whakamua ana ki te anamata o te ao hoou ma ngai taatou ngaa kaiako maaori.
Ki ahau nei “Ko Te Hapai ō” he waka e kawe ana i ngo taatou tumanakotanga me oona koroingo katoa. He ringa raupa teenei turanga e whakamahi i oona wheako me oona haepapa ki te mahi ngatahi i raro i te kotahitanga e hautu ake nei teenei turanga i te ara o te mana orite e pā ana hoki ki te tirohanga o te Tiriti o Waitangi otira te hononga mahinga tahitanga.
Ki taku whakapai ko ngaa kaiako māori te pou tokomanawa e taukawe ake ana te matu o te matauranga e rangona ai ngaa reo o ngaa kaiako maaori me oona hiahia me oona nawe e whai rongoa mo ngaa uauatanga me ngaa toimahatanga o ngaa mahi huhua a te kaiako.
E hautu ana taatou katoa e kokiri ana taatou i te aahuatanga o te mate korona Delta me te whakapakari pukenga ki te whakaako ma te huitopa Aue kokiri e. Ko te hapai ō, he kaihautu hoki ia hei whakaruruhau mo ngaa kaiako māori e whariki ana i ngaa pou o te whare tapawha, wairua, tinana, hinengaro me te whaanau whaanui. He tangata tuitui ahau Ahakoa ko wai ka manaaki ahau.
He tangata matatau hoki ahau ki te ture constitution of Te Wehengarua. Ka mutu he tangata whakaiti ahau ki te whakatinana i te puawaitanga o te rau aroha otiraa ngaa take mana māori motuhake. Ko te oranga aku rangatira, mahia te mahi hei painga mo te iwi otira mo koutou.
Hei Whakakapi ake naa Tā Hemi Henare te koorero:
Kua tawhiti kā to haerenga mai kia kore e haere tonu, He nui rawa
ōu mahi, kia kore e mahi nui tonu.
Māori Vice Presidential candidate – Te Aomihia Taua-Glassie
I truly believe that recognising te tiriti o Waitangi in its true form will alleviate many issues impacting on Māori teachers in our workplace spaces, in the union and the wider community.
Furthermore, I would focus on policy change that has been currently implemented and influence further policy change that is necessary to advancing Māori education, Māori student aspirations and Māori teachers opportunities. Therefore, I look to the past to navigate the present decline that continues to disadvantage our people.
Regardless of the issue of the time, the time has come for Māori to seek out the solutions to decolonize our spaces. It is not to say that all are ignorant or that we have been negligent to our bicultural responsibilities. Furthermore, my focus will be to encourage change like that of the strategy to revitalize reo Māori, one person at a time, in spaces of change. In the hope that I can further advance Māori teachers’ needs, our ancestors’ aspirations for us, not only for us as teachers but also our students. Therefore, we need to encourage and recruit more Māori into teaching. Secondly, how do we ensure NETS are supported to retain them in their positions and ensure better working conditions for all.
To conclude, I hope my words and experiences will be of benefit to Māori teachers and I will endeavour to advance issues that impact Māori teachers with our tangata tiriti. My vision will not waiver regardless of the climate of spaces, my focus being for Māori by Māori by encouraging others to wholeheartedly support this journey. Together as one, aspirations of all will be realised.
“Hīpokina Te Tiriti o Waitangi ki tōna ake kakahu, kāhore ki te
kākahu, ki te kara o Ingarangi”
Recognise the tiriti o Waitangi in its distinct form, rather than
accept it as a subjugate of English rule
My grandfather, Nā Houpeke Morore Piripi
Ko tōku whakapono mā te tiriti o Waitangi anō ngā take kaiako Māori e aweawetia te mana taurite ki ngā wāhi kura, ki ngā wāhi uniana me ngā wāhi hapori. Ka mutu, he tirohanga nōku ki ngā kaupapa here e kōkiri ana i te mātauranga Māori , i te ākonga Māori manako nui me ngā kaiako Māori whāinga angitu. Waihoki, he tirohanga whakamuri hei aronga whakamua ki ngā āhuatanga nekuneku e haere tonutia ana.
Ahakoa pēhea te take o te wā tāria te wā , nā te Māori anō tōna kaitoitoi ki ngā kapatau mōtītī o te tangata tiriti i whakahaere ai. Ehara i te mea he kūare noa iho, he ngoikore te tangata tiriti korekore hiahia ki te mōhio me te marama i ngā take hira ā te Māori. Ka mutu, mā tōku kaha anō te akiaki pērā ki tā te rautaki whakarauora reo ki tēnā , ki tēnā tangata tiriti, ki tēnā tangata whairawa ki tērā taumata pupuri mana e puta kaupapa here ana, ā , e āhei ngā kaupapa here kia kaha kōkiri haere ngā kaiako Māori hiahia, ā mātua tupuna manako ai mō ā rātou tamariki mokopuna. Hoino, ko ngā tino take nui o te wā ko te ākina a Māori ki ngā tūranga kaiako. Ka rua, me pēhea nōki te tiaki me te manaaki i te NET kia noho motuhake ia ki te tūranga kaiako me te mea ano me pehea te hapahapai ngā kaiako heipūtanga ahakoa te tautōhito o te kaiako.
Hei whakakapi i ngā kōrero mō te kaupapa nei mā aku kupu e whai māramatanga me ngā painga mō te Māori me te whakaatu ki a tangata tiriti mā i tō rātou kūaretanga ki ētahi ā tātou nei take
Raua atu ahau e matarehurehu ana ahakoa te huarere o te wā . He huarahi tō tika taku mō te painga Māori mai i te Māori . Ko tōna tikanga ka haria e ahau tēnei waka o tātou mā runga i tētahi terenga mēnā te tangata e ngākautia ana ki te whakakotahi i ngā whakaaro mō te terenga. Kotahi te hoe o te waka, ka ū te waka ki uta.
“Hīpokina Te Tiriti o Waitangi ki tōna ake kakahu, kāhore ki te
kākahu, ki te kara o Ingarangi”
Nā toku karani papa, Nā Houpeke Morore Piripi
