May 20, 2014
Change principal plan on track
Education Minister Hekia says the first principals and teachers taking on new roles in the school system should start work next year.
More than a third of the $858m in education spending in the budget was earmarked for the new initiative, which involves appointing principals to manage clusters of schools and change principals and expert teachers paid extra to turn around poorly-performing schools.
Officials have been working on details of the scheme with education sector unions and bodies representing principals, school boards, kura kaupapa and kura a iwi.
Ms Parata says it is being watched internationally.
"It was a very strong feature of the summit we held at the end of March where there was a huge amount of respect and indeed admiration for New Zealand taking this bold step, moving past talking about how important the quality of leadership and teaching is to actually investing $359 million and having the kind of coverage we expect to get out of this across our sector," she says.
She is keen to see Maori teachers and principals applying for the new roles.
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