Earlier this week, teachers’ unions accused Minister of Education Erica Stanford of a “blatant power grab.”  

This followed Stanford’s announcement that the Teaching Council will no longer set professional standards for teacher training. The Ministry of Education will take over this responsibility.  

Stanford also announced a shift in Council membership from a majority elected by the teaching profession to a majority appointed by the Minister. 

On the face of it, the unions have a point. Standards for doctors, lawyers, architects and accountants are all set by professional bodies, not by ministries.  

The Minister’s move is certainly unusual. It brings standards for teacher training under political, rather than professional, control.  

The dilemma is that the existing teaching standards do not reliably certify teacher competence. There is little prospect of the Teaching Council addressing that issue under the present arrangements. 

Last year, the Education Review Office reported that only 40 percent of interviewed principals believe that new teachers are adequately prepared for the classroom. More than a third of new teachers themselves said they could not effectively manage classroom behaviour. A third of primary teachers said they were unprepared to teach science. 

A recent OECD report paints an even worse picture. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed teacher graduates in New Zealand were not confident with the curriculum content they need to teach. Half were not confident in their teaching skills more generally. 

Considering these manifest deficiencies, the Minister is clearly not prepared to let things continue as they are. Politicising teaching standards has its risks, however. 

The standards could become a political football. Successive Ministers could use them to advance ideological objectives through the influence of the standards on teacher training programmes. 

The New Zealand Initiative has proposed a different approach. Instead of just one registration body for teachers, the Education and Training Act could enable many. Each could set its own standards within legislated parameters.  

Accountability is key to making this approach work. Publishing average measures of students’ educational progress for teachers registered under each set of standards would enable schools to identify which are most effective. 

A downside is that this competitive system would take time to produce improvement. Minister Stanford is clearly not prepared to wait. 

That is understandable. But in the longer term, a solution like that proposed by the Initiative could drive improvement, return the control of standards to the teaching profession, and protect teacher training from politicisation.