The growing rift between educators and the Ministry of Education will be obvious as thousands of teachers and parents take to New Zealand streets on Saturday to save Kiwis' quality public education system.
A ''Day of Action'' will be held in Dunedin on Saturday, beginning at 11am with a march from the University of Otago Dental School to the Octagon, where parents, teachers and MPs will address the rally at noon.
It will be one of many marches and rallies planned across the country in a bid to get the Government to back down on policies that the education sector believes will be disastrous for public education.
The Government's Global Education Reform Movement (Germ) agenda of privatising public education, setting up competition and creating winner and loser schools would be disastrous for the nation's children and their communities, New Zealand Educational Institute vice-president Frances Guy said.
The Government's policies represented the greatest threat to quality public education that New Zealand has seen in many years, she said.
NZEI Otago Area Council deputy chairwoman Lee Phillips said the action would show the extent of the deep concern in the community over policies they believed would be ''very damaging'' for children's education.
''Our Government is intent on following education policies that have seen student achievement drop, not grow, in other countries.
''The Germ agenda of introducing competition, charter schools, privatisation, standardised learning, performance pay and school league tables is an unsuccessful experiment.
''It creates winner and loser schools, blames and shames teachers and communities and forces children into one-size-fits-all learning.
''Already in New Zealand, we've seen the rushed and flawed implementation of National Standards, the botched implementation of Novopay, the hasty mergers and closures of schools in Christchurch, the imposition of league tables and the introduction of charter schools that don't have to employ qualified teachers.
''It's time instead to focus on quality teaching, building trust and collegiality between schools and policy makers and supporting every child to learn in the way that best suits them.''
Mrs Phillips said the Government had shown no sign it would listen to education professionals to support and improve New Zealand's quality public education system.
