{"id":481614,"date":"2026-06-17T08:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/481614\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T08:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T08:38:09","slug":"horowhenua-college-teacher-asaria-saili-investigated-over-conduct-allegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/481614\/","title":{"rendered":"Horowhenua College teacher Asaria Saili investigated over conduct allegation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Teaching Council<\/a> didn\u2019t ordinarily comment on matters involving specific individuals subject to an ongoing statutory process, but recognised the \u201chigh degree of public interest in this matter\u201d, council interim chief executive Tom Gott said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are satisfied that in this case the public interest in the safety of children and young people outweighs the normal privacy considerations … the Teaching Council has received serious concerns relating to this individual and has referred these to the appropriate statutory process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saili was not a registered teacher, but previously held a Limited Authority to Teach (LAT), which expired on March 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe individual does not hold any current authority to teach in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council was working closely with the school and relevant agencies, Gott said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take our obligations to safeguard children and young people extremely seriously … we are unable to comment further on the detail or progress of the statutory process at this time, to ensure fairness and uphold the principles of natural justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HorowhenuaHorowhenua College principal Grant Congdon says the school’s investigation into an allegation relating to teacher Asaria Saili’s conduct towards a student is nearly completed.<\/p>\n

Congdon said he also couldn\u2019t give any details on the allegation because of the privacy required under the employment investigation process.<\/p>\n

Saili was still officially a member of staff at the state co-educational secondary school while the investigation \u2013 which was \u201cnearing the end\u201d \u2013 took place, the principal said.<\/p>\n

But the school decided \u201cearly on\u201d in its investigation that it \u201cwasn\u2019t appropriate for Mr Saili to be in class\u201d while the process took place.<\/p>\n

The school had offered its support to the school community following the allegations against Saili.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking to do as much as we can to support our students and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congdon said Saili\u2019s teaching registration had lapsed since he went on leave, because he was \u201cteaching on an LAT and it hadn\u2019t been renewed because these investigations have been in process\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"HorowhenuaHorowhenua College teacher Asaria Saili worked as a language teacher at the Levin high school before he was put on paid leave as part of a school investigation. Photo \/ Horowhenua College website<\/p>\n

LAT stands for Limited Authority to Teach and allows people to teach if they have specialist skills or there\u2019s a shortage of registered teachers in their area, according to the Teaching Council.<\/p>\n

Without one, Saili can\u2019t teach in New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Teaching Council didn\u2019t ordinarily comment on matters involving specific individuals subject to an ongoing statutory process, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85970,242072,682,12784,34749,137507,35200,111,43,139,69,1523,42877,242073,9631,7574,21419],"class_list":["post-481614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-allegation","tag-asaria","tag-being","tag-college","tag-conduct","tag-horowhenua","tag-investigated","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-relating","tag-saili","tag-student","tag-teacher","tag-towards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}