Plan for dealing with disruptive kids too late says PPTA

The Dom Post reports:

Education Minister Anne Tolley unveiled plans at the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) national conference in Wellington yesterday to put 12,000 parents of disruptive kids through parenting courses and give 5000 teachers from low-income areas extra training to deal with violence.

PPTA president Kate Gainsford said the plan was “a step in the right direction” but was not enough to help secondary teachers already dealing with disturbed and violent students.

“It’s a great idea, we won’t see the results for another decade, and that’s just too late,” she said.

Hmmn, who has been in Government for the last decade? Is the PPTA saying Labour should have done this in their first year of office, rather than leave it to National to come up with solutions in their first year of office?

“It needs to be supplemented at the adolescent level now.”

That would be nice, and it is tough for teachers with disruptive adolescents. But in an era of limited funding, the targeting of the scheme at kids when they are much younger will have the most impact in the long term.