Stanford Questions Union Leader's Future After Fisher Report Faults Teaching Council
Education Minister Erica Stanford says NZEI Te Riu Roa president Ripeka Lessels may no longer be able to stay in the job because of her past role on the Teaching Council, RNZ.
Lessels is a former deputy chair and long-serving member of the council. She now leads NZEI Te Riu Roa, the union that represents primary teachers.
The Teaching Council is the professional body that registers teachers and handles misconduct. To be struck off is to lose a teaching licence, much as a driver loses a licence.
Stanford spoke after barrister Katherine Anderson KC released her report into the council's handling of teacher Timothy Fisher. The report found the council should have struck Fisher off a decade before he was convicted. Fisher was convicted of indecency and sex offences against children, most of them under 12.
Stanford said a "rotten culture" inside the council allowed Fisher to keep teaching despite multiple warning signs, RNZ.
She said she had removed elected members from the council's board in favour of 100% ministerially appointed members. That shifts the council from a partly elected professional body to a fully appointed board.
The current chair, Patrick Walsh, was appointed by Stanford. He served on the council's disciplinary tribunal and governing council during the period covered by the Anderson report.
The Fisher case is not isolated in the public record. Multiple cases of sex offenders getting jobs in schools have added to concern about the council, The Spinoff.
Stanford set out changes to the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill in May, the law change now before Parliament. The Green Party said the changes undermine the Teaching Council, NZ Herald.
The Government had earlier announced work to lift the quality of Initial Teacher Education (ITE), the university and college training for new teachers. A teachers' union described Stanford's council plans as a "power grab", NZ Herald. In September 2024 Stanford had said her relationship with the teacher unions was "excellent", NZ Herald.
The broader context here is that ministers and teacher unions meet on two tracks. They negotiate pay and conditions across the table. They also work through curriculum, assessment and professional standards. When the minister publicly questions whether a union president can stay, that second track gets harder to manage.
In my view, two threads are now joined. The first is accountability for regulatory failure, where Anderson's findings on Fisher set the terms. The second is control of the council itself, where full ministerial appointment puts responsibility with the minister. That has a political cost. If the council is the minister's board, its next failure is the minister's failure. It also sharpens the contest with the unions and the Opposition over professional autonomy, and it will shape MPs' detailed scrutiny of the System Reform Bill in select committee and any further decisions on ITE.
