TEACHERS’ JOURNAL HITS AT MINISTER

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 12

TEACHERS’ JOURNAL HITS AT MINISTER

Criticism of the Minister of Education (Mr R. M. Algie) for failing to ntake public reports of committees which have inquired i into intermediate schools, the postprimary curriculum, and the recruitment of teachers is made in a leading article (called “The Fate of Reports”) in the May journal of the New Zealand Postprimary Teachers’ Association. “Some four years ago a group of teachers and departmental officers spent a week discussing intermediate schools, and they framed a report which was placed in the hahds of the Minister of Education. This report has never been made public." the article says. “Our association therefore, has never had the benefit of what we assume would be expert opinion on intermediate schools. “Evidently the report was in favour of them, for the Minister has built new ones from one end of the country to the other, and has stated that they are now “an integral part of the education system of our country.’ We cannot help reflecting upon how much better it would have been had the Minister made public the report. It is a fact that there are opponents of the intermediate school system. Had these opponents read the report, which we presume gave strong evidence in favour ci such schools then they may have been won over as strong champions in their defence. They would at least have felt some satisfaction in the thought that the Minister had taken them into his confidence, and that his decision to go ahead with such schools was based on a weighty body of evidence.

Confidential Report “In the middle of last year some members of our association along with other teachers and departmental officers spent a week discussing the post-primary curriculum and the school certificate examination with particular reference to the position of Latin.’ Again a report was furnished to the Minister. This time executive members have received a copy, though not until March of this year. The report, however, is stamped in large letters confidential, and thus the information in it is available to very few people. We can hardly be expected to assume at this stage, nearly a year after the committee sat, that the Minister intends to widen its distribution,” says the article. “Why is it the general body of our teachers is denied the information embodied in these reports? Are we not responsible members of a profession? When information is kept so closely

' guarded by the Minister and his ■ closest advisers we can almost be s pardoned for wondering if there i is some very special reason for withholding the truth from us. We may wonder, for example, i if there is some secret process in scaling that it is considered would destroy our confidence in the school certificate examination. Actually anyone who has read the report on Latin would laugh at the idea that there is anything to hide. Indeed they would feel that the Minister is doing himself and the department a disservice by not spreading the report, for the confidence of teachers and of the public at large would be increased if they were able to read of the grand job the department performs in handling the school certificate pxaTni nation “It is well-known to members that last year two representatives of our association, along with others, spent many hours in dei liberation on the recruitment com- ' mittee. No matter is of greater importance to the post-primary service than recruitment, for shortage of teachers will mean : a constant threat to conditions of service and a deterioration in end-product—the pupils we turn out of our schools- We know the position is bad. We think we are entitled to know just how bad it is. Truth is ever the soundest foundation for constructive thinking. We believe the general public should know too. for it is they who pay for education and their childreix who will be affected," says the article. “We hope that the report of the recruitment committee will soon be released, and late though it is. that the other reports mentioned may soon be circulated among our members.”