Western Bay of Plenty teachers are welcoming continued assurance from the Minister of Education that national standards will not be introduced for Year 9 and 10 students.

Post Primary Teachers' Association regional chairman Jason Smythe says at Year 9 and 10 a national standards system would clash with current curriculum of NCEA standards.

Western Bay of Plenty PPTA chairman Jason Smythe.

'It's more appropriate that these are offered to our students, as these help them acquire NCEA Level One and other qualifications,” says Jason.

This renewed commitment follows Minister of Education Anne Tolley's announcement that teachers are to receive two days of professional support.

These will be used to train the teachers on aligning new NCEA standards to the curriculum at the Year 12 level.

Jason says while two days is good, it does not fairly reflect the amount of work required.

'The two days offered are disproportionate to the workload implications of the alignment of the new curriculum to the new NCEA standards for Level Two,” says Jason.

'There are still issues with the alignment of Level One, which began last year.

'There are subjects, like the technologies, that don't have all the resources from the NZQA which were promised in December.

'Some haven't had standards released from the NZQA yet – though our teachers are supposed to be using them.”

Jason says it's like telling a road worker to fill up a pot-hole this week and giving them the shovel in a week's time.

'Our teachers don't have access to all of the resources they need to complete their job properly.

'The two days from the minister will be useful, but will require NZQA to live up to its end of the bargain in a timely manner if they are to be truly effective for aligning Level Two NCEA.

'Both of these announcements shows the minister may bay beginning to realise the implications of policies without adequate resourcing,” says Jason.