Thousands of principals, teachers and administrators around the country are expected to picket outside National MP offices this morning, protesting the Government's tardiness in fixing Novopay.
A New Zealand Educational Institute spokeswoman said today marked six months since the disastrous Novopay payroll system was introduced.
She said relief from ''Novopain'' was urgently needed and educators were taking the message directly to National MPs before school this morning, with pickets outside MPs' offices around the country.
In the South, staff would be picketing outside the offices of Michael Woodhouse (corner of Princes and Jetty Sts, Dunedin), Bill English (Main St, Gore) and Eric Roy (Dee St, Invercargill), at 7am.
Thousands of Otago primary school teachers are expected to gather later this month to further discuss the Novopay debacle.
The meeting is part of the New Zealand Educational Institute's collective agreement discussions (March 12-22), which will raise important issues in public education, including progress on their collective agreement negotiations, their response to the Novopay situation, and the Government's global education reform agenda.
She said the Ministry of Education's claims would advance its agenda, which invited competition rather than collaboration and more inequity in schools and communities, and led to standardisation in learning rather than meeting an individual's needs.john.lewis@odt.co.nz
