A large part of the paper work is incident reports for special needs children within the classroom.
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Well, yes - there is a longstanding unholy alliance between the Ministry against Education, who work hard to create year after year more useless paperwork for schools and teachers to complete (instead of teaching) and the teachers unions who work hard to prevent new people and ideas (like charter schools) from gaining access to the industry. Classical loose - loose for students and parents.
Ah yes - and special needs students belong on special schools (as in most civilised countries). The NZ system is serving neither them nor the other students. Again - loose-loose for everybody.
Lets do it!
You don,t like the locals, that is fairly obvious . I am not sure what country you are trying to change us into but it must be a wonderful place to live in.
As for teachers and their troubles, modern society and its treatment of children as young gods is responsible for most of their so called problems.
Teacher shortages, most men would run from teaching these days, the risk of being fingered by a child with a grudge being too great. Bring back the strap etc.
Obviously I am a product of the “ children should be seen and not heard generation “:)
westerly
Entire contents deleted by an annoyed STMOD.
About time to leave this subject?
(Thread is: "Labour/NZ First Government")
Good idea. NZ First been a bit silent of late. No surprise given Shane Jones shredding cash in his forestry balls up. "Here you go, have a million trees" "Oops make that one hundred thousand - shame the land is full of scrub and weeds. Shoulda thought about that"
So Shane - are you just throwing cash at a Maori Trust that lost $264k last year when its income was only $1.1m
That the most lack of though comment I have seen in a long time, if you understood the legal approach that has to be taken you would not be so flippant 😊 each has a certain approach that legally has to report to the MOE and Board. We are talking often serious asssalts often resulting in people in hospital.
Various quite different education themes linked into a quite complicated and unrelated tax issue - and this in just two lines ...
so - what do you really want to know - if anything?
Lets see ...
1) "top rate education .... cost money". True, however - not necessarily as much money as we currently spend. Our school system suffers under the typical problems of any bureaucracy. More bureaucrats create more bureaucracy requiring more money. Does not improve the education, though. Smart spending of money would be preferrable and we don't need a tax hike.
2) "teacher aids ... cost money". True. Have seen countries with a better educations system and without (or with less) teacher aids - i.e. they are not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the education system, more a reflection on the non standard tasks our standard schools have to deal with. A better and smarter task allocation (like e.g. concentrating special needs children in purpose build schools) would actually save money. What are we doing with the freed up funds - reduce taxes?
3) "good special education costs money". True, however significantly less than the current system where basically every school needs to spend huge amounts of money for a very small number of special needs children. Our local primary school had to pay more than one million dollars to cater for one single special needs child which moved into the township. After completion of the building activities moved the family on and the facilities have never been used. Mindboggling inefficiency.
Not mentioned by you, but I have seen many classes with suboptimal education for everybody because the teacher had to cater for one or two special needs children as well who loved to disturb the class. Absolutely brain dead approach to have all children suffer just because they don't want to concentrate the special needs children.
4) Capital gains tax: While we don't need more money for education (see above) do I have no problems with the introduction of a capital gains tax if it is fair (i.e. no exceptions, no loopholes) and efficent (i.e. cost to collect the tax is significantly lower than the collected tax). I have not yet seen though a fair and efficient capital gains tax in any country. Have you?
Discl: have seen three children through the NZ school system and served as well on a board of trustees and on a community board. I do know the system.
True I covered several fields in the one post. I was most intrigued by your negative comparison of NZ special needs accommodation with “most civilised countries.”
Which are these civilised countries and what makes them “civilised”?
Dedicated special needs schools may be cost effective and feasible in large population centres but in less densely populated areas it could be impractical and inadvisable to dislocate the pupils?
I totally agree with you in relation to a non-comprehensive CGT...but I wondered if you would need to apply your “what happens in most civilised countries” test to tax and topics other than education too? This thread is not limited to education.
Disc: I have no experience of special needs education in NZ or in other countries (civilised or not).
Disc: I had nits when I was a child. It was a relief when they were cleared up and my hair was nit-free!
Prof Brady tweeted this today
Anne-Marie Brady (@Anne_MarieBrady)
16/11/18, 10:20 AM
Yesterday my car was sabotaged, two tyres had been interfered with; someone broke in to my garage to do it. It was only be chance I took the car into the mechanic for the six-monthly warrant and he noticed it straight away.
And Jacinda again repeating NZ is not taking sides in South China Sea dispute
Not taking sides is a way of supporting the aggressor ...shame
Not just Labour but previous National government as well
This is not really related to the headline of this thread but political. It is clear that privacy laws have become ridiculously restrictive and the rights of offenders have become much higher placed than rights of previous or potential victims. We need a law change https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12160069
Dangerous idea from Parker. They should leave the Guardians of the Super Fund alone to do what they are meant to do. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108...enture-capital
Their mandate is simple and we don't need political interference:
"Mandate
Under the Act, the Guardians must invest the Fund on a prudent, commercial basis and, in doing so, must manage and administer the Fund in a manner consistent with:
best practice portfolio management;
maximising return without undue risk to the Fund as a whole; and
avoiding prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as a responsible member of the world community."
I think the whole construct and circumstance of the Superfund is political - Cullen being the architect. National suspended payments into the fund during its time in office. As a result of previous lack of planning, Today's taxpayers are not only paying for today's pensions but they are also paying into the fund for the provision for tomorrow's pensions. The fund exists even though NZ continues to have government debt.
As it does exist, I agree with the proposition that it should be involved in funding NZ venture capital and I think too the fund should finance and invest in only NZ based companies and business. At least that way it could compensate for past NZ policies and circumstances that have seen the NZ share market hollowed out and many NZ businesses relocating overseas in order to access capital.
It is shameful that only 15% of the super funds assets are in NZ. That means that NZ taxpayers taxes have been diverted overseas. If the money had been left in the hands of taxpayers, taxpayers would probably have spent more than the Superfund has on investing in NZ or supporting NZ business. As all the delisting companies attest, NZ companies have been finding it difficult to raise capital in NZ and the tax-funded Superfund, as it now stands, may have added to that difficulty.
Instead of the Superfund, the half-hearted Kwisaver should be boosted. At the moment tax breaks are limited with little incentive for taxpayers to boost their annual contributions beyond the minimum to get the annual tax credit or to build up a sizeable balance. There should also be greater incentives/tax breaks for kiwisavers to invest in NZ-only investments.