Western Bay of Plenty teachers are marching in Tauranga to express their concern about the direction education is going in.

They are taking part in a march and rally on Devonport Road as part of a nationwide protest.

Teachers marching to protest their concerns about the direction education is going in.

NZEI Bay of Plenty field officer Rachel Chater says it's the Global Education Reform movement.

She says teachers want the Government to scrap its charter schools policy.

'The UK, US and Australia are prime examples. If you look at Sweden, they have had charter schools and it has been a complete failed experiment.

'Every country that has implemented charter school has significantly gone down in their OECD rankings.”

She says only 11 per cent of charters schools internationally do better than the public counterparts, so that's 89 per cent which do worse.

'The whole point about today is educating the public but also showing that the public is involved. The community is here supporting us as well.

'It's not just teachers protesting, communities are protesting saying let's keep our high quality public education.”

Rachel, teachers and members of the community want the Government to sit down with them discuss what is the best thing for students in New Zealand.

'What we want here is a high quality of education no matter which school or class a child attends. We want to keep that collaboration going. We are not there yet. We know there are still come children failing.”

She says social issues are one of the main reasons behind students failing.

'The Government says one in five children are failing. What they are failing to tell you is that those children will never succeed according to the Government standards because of a mental or other disability.

'We need to deal with the broader issue if we want to improve education here.”