High-performing teachers will be given cash bonuses from a national funding pool, under new ACT Party proposals.
At the ACT Partys annual conference on Sunday, leader David Seymour called for tougher teacher accreditation to raise the bar on the profession.
Teachers would be expected to undertake development in maths, science and English, Seymour said.
Its difficult to be inspired to excellence by someone who themselves failed Year 12, he said.
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Teachers are required to undertake professional development each year, but it was unclear what that specified, Seymour told hundreds of conference attendees.
Students were falling behind international standards, and the bar needed to be raised for teachers, he said.
Act Party leader David Seymour offers his opinion of Budget 2021.
But while he asked for tougher standards, he also proposed a $250 million fund which principals could draw from to reward teachers who had demonstrated excellence.
With total discretion, a principal could reward a top performing teacher with an extra, say, $15,000. The effect of the policy would be to seriously change the range or people considering teaching.
In 2017, he suggested a similar plan for incentivised pay among teachers, with a cap of $1 billion to raise salaries for high-performing teachers.
So while the new fund was just a quarter of the previous proposal, he said the teachers should be rewarded for excellence, rather than years on the job.
There is no formula imposed by Government, this is not performance pay it is an Excellence Reward Fund that a principal can use over and above normal salaries, just like any boss of a small to medium enterprise is in charge of remuneration, he said.
ACT Party leader David Seymour spoke to a few hundred people at the annual conference at the ASB Theatre, Auckland.
Four-year Government terms
ACT also pushed for the governments term to be extended from three years to four.
National leader Judith Collins and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have both previously said they supported a move from a three-year term to four.
New Zealands parliamentary term is short compared to most countries. The United Kingdoms term is five, while the United States has an election every four years. The US presidency is capped at two four-year terms.
Previous polls have showed support from Kiwis for extending the term.
But under Seymours proposal the Government would have to hand over control of select committees to the opposition.
He said the independent Select Committees would amount to a voice of the people asking the tough questions of Government laws.
They would be a dozen or so mini parliaments where dissenting voices would dominate.