5. Background

5.1 The review group

The Minister of Education constituted and chaired the Staffing Review Group to advise the Government on the staffing needs of the compulsory school sector.  Membership comprised:

The Minister of Education, Hon. Trevor Mallard

Project Manager, Graeme Marshall, Ministry of Education

and the nominated representatives of:

• New Zealand School Trustees’ Association – Owen Edgerton
• NZPPTA Principals’ Council and Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand – Arthur Graves
• New Zealand Principals’ Federation – Geoff Lovegrove
• Te Runanga Nui o Nga Kura Kaupapa Mäori – Bev Manahi
• NZPPTA – Roger Tobin
• NZEI Te Riu Roa – Bruce Adin

Members therefore represented classroom practitioners, school leaders and those charged with the employment of teachers and the governance of schools.

The Ministry of Education provided technical assistance and the meetings were chaired by the Minister of Education, with Graeme Marshall of the Ministry of Education acting as deputy chairperson in the Minister’s absence.

5.2 Terms of reference

The terms of reference set by the Minister (8 May 2000) were as follows:

“The Review Group is charged with advising the Minister of Education on the overall staffing levels for the schools sector as a whole.  This should include consideration of the workloads of teachers and principals, changes to the curriculum, Mäori students’ education, Pacific students’ education and other educational needs.

A set of principles, which will guide the Review Committee in its deliberations, should be developed. These principles will take into account the curriculum needs of the students, changing demographics of the school age population, and changes in information and communications technology.

Recommendations should address the following:

• A mechanism for improved staffing levels for small rural schools, which will be able to be implemented from the beginning of the 2001 school year. The committee should provide early recommendations on this issue.
• Recommended arrangements for improving staffing for the school sector in the medium and long term, with particular attention to the needs of small rural secondary and area schools, low decile schools, and schools with teaching principals.
• A phased implementation plan. This could include up to 10 steps, able to be implemented in a planned sequence to achieve the review’s objectives by the end of the time period.
• Recommendations should take into account the Government’s budget priorities and teacher supply projections.

The Review Committee will provide recommendations by 28 February 2001. Interim reports to the Minister will be provided.

The Minister also requested the group be visionary and look to long term staffing goals.

He also proposed fiscal guidelines within which recommendations were to be constructed.

5.3 Timetable

The Review Group met nine times between May 2000 and February 2001. There were also three technical meetings between the Ministry of Education and Review Group representatives.

5.4 Key considerations

The members of the Review Group agreed that within the terms of reference the goal should be to advise the Government on the staffing needs of schools that would best deliver education improvements for students over the next 20 years.

The Group agreed that its deliberations and recommendations would be measured against the following principles and that it must:

1 Consider the wider issues of curriculum and pastoral needs of all students regardless of sector.

2 Consider changes to the national curriculum, national assessment and national qualifications.

3 Consider the Government's obligations to the educational needs of Mäori, both in regular schools and Te Kura Kaupapa Mäori, and Pacific students.

4 Consider the management requirements of all schools.

5 Take into account the impact on all points of other government initiatives in the sector, eg, the operations grant review, the redistribution of savings from the abolition of bulk funding and the review of Special Education 2000.

6 Address workload issues for principals and teachers.

7 Take into consideration the projected roll variations in primary and secondary schools.

8 Take into account teacher supply projections.

9 Pay particular attention to the needs of small rural and area schools.

10 Pay particular attention to the needs of low decile schools.

11 Pay particular attention to the needs of schools with teaching principals, ie, schools where the management component is less than 1.0 FTTE.

12 Take into consideration the impact of developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

13 Incorporate a phased implementation plan aimed at staffing improvement in all sectors.

14 Take into account Government budget prioritiesIn delivering this report the Review Group has presented its deliberations, findings and recommendations within a conceptual framework proposed by a Ministry of Education paper to guide the review process[1].  The model suggests that policy decisions should be framed within a series of questions, addressing issues of adequacy of education, capacity, school improvement and cost efficiency.

In addition, the Review Group paid particular attention to:

Property

The School Staffing Review Group was advised that its recommendations needed to take into account only the annual costs, eg, depreciation of the property implications of additional staffing.  The initial capital costs of these property implications were not to be considered as part of the overall staffing proposals.  These costs would be met through the Property Business Case of the Ministry of Education.

For property implications, the general staffing recommendations of the School Staffing Review can be classified as either curriculum or management staffing.  In this context, “management staffing” includes the proposed Professional Leadership and Guidance components. All parties to the Staffing Review, and the Ministry of Education, agree that schools should be free to deploy their total staffing resource as they see fit.  This implies that schools may choose to deploy staffing tagged as “management” in the curriculum area.  If they choose to do so, they would need to assess and manage the property implications of this choice.

In making an assessment of the property cost implications of the staffing recommendations in this report, additional classroom and resource space has been assigned and costed only for curriculum changes at the point that they would trigger whole units.  This occurs at each additional 0.5 FTTE in secondary schools and each additional 0.8 FTTE in primary schools. Allowances have been made for small administrative upgrades or office space provisions where additional management staffing is provided and this staffing passes an integer. For example, a movement of 1.9 FTTE to 2.1 FTTE would trigger a cost.  The next trigger would come on passing 3.0 FTTEs.

Resourcing

The Review Group was asked to consider delivering staffing improvements across the sector, in 10 or fewer steps, and costing between $100 and $200 million. The group was aware that Cabinet approval would be required as part of annual budget processes over several years.