Until recently, New Zealand laws recognized teachers, doctors and nurses as self-regulating professionals. However, some recent changes within the law will change all that.
The latest regulations will allow government priorities to be directly imposed on skilled standards and the character of skilled activities teachers, doctors AND nurses.
We imagine that the federal government’s moves undermine the independence of those key service providers and potentially the standard of those services.
Until now, skilled boards were legally chargeable for setting standards and certification processes, developing codes of conduct, and regulating members of the career.
This meant that government ministers had limited powers to appoint or revoke the appointment of individuals to quality assurance or management positions. However, the most recent changes to the law will effectively give ministers more control over skilled practice.
What’s changing
The Education and Training Amendment Act (system reform).passed last month, transfers the setting of teacher education standards (before candidates start working within the career) to the Ministry of Education.
Among other things, it requires the Minister of Education to appoint all members of the commission Pedagogical Council.
Under the brand new rules, only three of seven to nine appointees should have educational experience (minimum five years), and the edge for removing appointed council members is on the discretion of the minister.
The Teaching Council will now act as a Crown regulatory body fairly than a self-regulatory skilled body.
Education Minister Erica Stanford says the changes are based on “latest evidence” on strengthening the teaching career, including:
the necessity to strengthen the arrogance and readiness of our latest teachers, and up to date findings highlighting the necessity for an expert regulatory body with a transparent give attention to protecting kid’s safety and ensuring the standard of teaching practice.
However, a number of the evidence cited within the above-mentioned regulatory impact statement for changes within the teacher regulation model criticized for its methodology.
In recently published review within the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, former chief scientific adviser on education, Professor Stuart McNaughton, discussed the “risk of simplification” in overly prescriptive education models that obscure the “complexities of teaching, learning and education”.
McNaughton argued that applying simplification in policy and practice risks “maintaining or even increasing inequitable outcomes” […] limiting what we have now learned; and deprofessionalization of the role of teachers.
However, with teacher education, the setting of skilled standards, oversight of the curriculum, and the composition of the Teachers’ Council, which now reports on to the minister, control over what and the way teachers teach has modified dramatically.
Similar health changes
In medicine, Health Minister Simeon Brown accused the medical regulator, the Medical Council of New Zealand, of “ideological program“within the performance of the statutory obligation to guard public safety.
Replacing the chairman and vice-chairman, Brown particularly criticized the council’s position regarding cultural competence and safety training designed to assist clinicians protect themselves from biases, whether intentional or not.
Brown earlier modified the composition of the Nursing Councilreducing the variety of Māori nurses and representatives on the board.
Both clinical and cultural safety have long been considered essential to providing quality health care. Cultural competency training is now critical to evidence-based care and has been credited with saving lives.
However, the Minister is now planning major changes to the laws governing the regulation and practice of health professionals to higher align with the Government’s priorities.
The Amending Act regarding ensuring the competence of health care employees goals to “adapt regulations regarding medical personnel to the needs of patients.” […] and government priorities.
Unintended consequences
Removing independent oversight of essential professions creates financial risks if governments introduce and take away occupational mandates every election cycle.
If specialized expertise is devalued, it also risks exacerbating labor shortages. Employees who feel ethically threatened or overwhelmed by the demands imposed may decide to achieve this leave the career or search for a job abroad.
Finally, an excessive amount of government control over professions and expectations of obedience from education and health care employeesweakens the role of the general public spokesman for these professions.
This could potentially have a chilling effect on the essential need for whistleblowers in education and health care. These things are crucial to a functioning democracy.
Politicians rarely have a high level of specialist knowledge of their portfolios within the areas they manage. The assumption that increased ministerial control will improve outcomes in health and education requires greater scrutiny.