Secondary school teachers strike in Wellington in August. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
More than 20,000 secondary school teachers will go on strike on Wednesday afternoon.
The full, nationwide strike will take place from 1.15pm to 3.15pm - on the second day of NCEA and scholarship exams.
Post Primary Teacher's Association president Chris Abercrombie is hopeful it will help the government to come up with a better pay offer.
Members voted overwhelmingly to reject the most recent offer of a 2.5 percent rise in September, before strongly endorsing industrial action.
"We just really hope the government comes to the party with an offer, so we don't have to engage in any more industrial action, we can just focus on the teaching and learning," Abercrombie said.
It is the last action scheduled, after teachers refused to teach certain class levels, from Year 7 to 13, between 14 and 17 October, took part in a full day national strike on 23 October, and carried out a ban on extracurricular activity on 29 October.
Abercrombie said the association would go back into bargaining on 11 November.
However, he was disappointed it had taken so long.
"This government has said that they want to meet, they want to negotiate. We still haven't had any negotiations since early October, possibly even late September," he said. "The government keeps saying come around the table, get negotiations, that's the way to do it. But it's been really hard to get negotiating dates for the secondary teachers."
The Ministry of Education and Public Service Commission have been approached for comment.
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