Class Wars: The Teachers Fight Back
Aotearoa’s education system is in crisis. A perfect storm of underfunding, understaffing, low pay and long hours is causing people to leave the teaching profession in droves. This exodus is demonstrated in two alarming facts: one, that between 2010 and 2016, there was a 40% drop in student teachers; two, and even worse — that nearly half of all new teachers are dropping the career in their first five working years. Principals are feeling the pain as well: a study was released last year showing that too much work and unsafe hours are resulting in principals in primary schools experiencing dangerously high amounts of stress, burnout and sleep deprivation.
