Kate Hawkesby: I hope the Minister was listening, because the kids are right

So as we look down the barrel of another week of potential strikes, I am heartened by the students calling for it to end, and the prospect that it just might with some independent arbitration. Not before time. As frustrated as we are with the striking teachers, I don’t blame them, it’s the government who’s dragged the chain here in not resolving it and allowing kids to be pawns in all this. So far teachers have rejected the latest pay offer, lump sum, and three payrises, as suggested by the Ministry. Teachers say it’s not good enough. They have more strikes planned right up until the end of term. But over the weekend the PPTA said they’d now look at an Employment Relations Authority proposal that they suspend strike action and start independent arbitration. I can only hope they make a decision on this quickly and that it’s the right decision – to suspend the industrial action. Obviously the Ministry of Education wants it stopped, and parents and many students want it stopped, but it may mean the Ministry has to step up a little bit more to make it happen. Students don’t deserve all this interrupted learning. And they’re saying so. I was encouraged by the group of Waikato students who wrote an open letter to Minister Jan Tinetti saying enough is enough. They said “the greatest detriment to our future as New Zealand students is education disruption. While you battle over pay and conditions, students across the country are being sent home. Yet again our learning - despite all the rhetoric to the opposite - is happily being used as a pawn for political and union conflict”, they wrote. Good on them. Dozens of student leaders from Waikato schools signed it. They also pointed out that ‘as strike action continues, the Education Minister and her staff are contradicting the entire purpose of their jobs - to ensure the education of the country’s children and young people.’ They said, “We, as a student body, are in our fourth year of disruptions. We have not had it easy. However, we have compromised and done our very best, as we knew that the past three years were out of anyone’s control. This time, we do have control. You have control and right now this is a change we can make. Why are you putting us, the students, in the middle of a discussion where we are your focus..” They went on to say that as strike action goes on, ‘the Education Minister and her staff are contradicting the entire purpose of their jobs - to ensure the education of the country’s children and young people.’ So I take my hat off to them for telling it like it is. They have a right to be angry and they have a right to voice it. I only hope the Minister was listening. Because they’re right. They are contradicting the whole purpose of their jobs. The kids are over it. They’re knee deep in internals, they’re stressed, they’re fed up, they want it over. If the government can’t see the damage this is doing, then they’ve got their head in the sand. Let’s hope independent arbitration is agreed on and can work towards a good outcome here, that doesn’t involve more time off school for hard working students who are just trying to get their NCEA credits, and get a bit of learning in.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.