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NZEI Te Riu Roa says the latest Annual Child Poverty Monitor shows why schools need more public health nurses and social workers rather than the $359 million Investing in Educational Success policy.
Education Minister Hekia Parata yesterday renewed her criticism of the primary teachers union for rejecting the policy of giving some principals and teachers extra money so they can share their expertise among clusters of schools.
NZEI executive member Lynda Stuart, the principal of May Rd School in Auckland, says what many schools need is resources to deal directly with the effects of poverty, which the monitor shows affects one in four children including one in three tamariki Maori.
She says her own school has a public health nurse working one day a week, which is not enough to deal with the need.
It shares a social worker with another school, but could use one full time.
NZEI Te Riu Roa is advocating what it calls a Better Plan that would provide more support staff, smaller class sizes, more support for Maori and Pasifika children and better quality early childhood education.
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