There is support from both main political parties for teachers to be required to have post graduate qualifications. In principle, having better educated teachers sounds good, but there are issues that may not have been thought through:
- Who will pay for the extra training costs involved? Presumably, the teacher trainees will be expected to get even larger student loans.
- Will there be a job for every graduate who wants one so that they are not forced to look overseas for work, draining valuable skills from New Zealand, and causing their student loans to increase by massive amounts through interest and penalties.
- Will teachers be better paid to cover the increased time and cost of training?
- Will the teachers be able to afford to live in Auckland? We know of increasing numbers of overseas resident, New Zealand trained, teachers (and others with valuable skills), who wish to relocate back to New Zealand but who find that they simply cannot afford to live in Auckland. In many cases, people have been offered jobs back in New Zealand which they have had to turn down because of high living costs and relatively poor salaries.