Teachers’ Meetings

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27074, 24 June 1953, Page 8

Teachers’ Meetings

The proposed new system for the appointment and promotion of teachers in primary schools is important enough to warrant giving teachers every opportunity of informing themselves on its implications before they vote on whether it should be accepted. There would be no great objection to the closing of schools in Canterbury this week so that teachers from town and country can attend special meetings to discuss the proposals if that were the only way, or the best way, of making the proposals understood, although a Saturday would be more convenient for meetings. But these meetings are not the only way, and under the announced agenda, certainly not the best way, of informing teachers. The procedure adopted is unusual; one speaker will put the case for the proposals and a second speaker will put the case against. There will be no discussion, which could be useful, and the only questions accepted will be written questions. Arguments for and against have been fully canvassed in “ National Education ”, the journal of the New Zealand Educational Institute. Teachers who wish to reach a reasoned conclusion before the plebiscite have the education to do so by careful study of the considered and revised written arguments, which are likely to be more exact than the spoken word. The objection, then, to these meetings, and to the agreement of the Canterbury Education Board to the closing of the schools, is that the occasion is not sufficiently exceptional to justify them and not sufficiently exceptional to make them other than a precedent, and a bad one. Though not much harm is done by closing the schools on one day or one half-day, harm may be done if teachers are encouraged to think that stop-work meetings are a recognised feature of their profession.