Ministerial Rebuke To Teachers’ Body

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29820, 12 May 1962, Page 12

Ministerial Rebuke To Teachers’ Body

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 11. “The statement by the national executive of the New Zealand Post-Primary Teachers’ Association on rates of payment for the marking of School Certificate scripts completely and quite deliberately ignores the major issue,” said the Minister of Education, Mr Tennent, today.

“I say ‘quite deliberately,’ because only last week I made my position, and the Government’s position, as clear as anyone could make it,” he added. Mr Tennent said that the Government could not seriously consider acting on any representations so long as the association adopted the attitude of “give us what we ask, or else.” After a meeting with the association on May 2, the Minister said, he wrote to it saying: “So many aspects of the question were touched upon in the course of our discussion, that I have felt it important to restate in writing what I and my colleagues in the Government regard as the essential issue. Your conference recommended to your members that they should not offer their services as markers unless rates of payment were increased to the satisfaction of your executive by the end of the first term of this year; and this resolution was passed directly after I had announced a 25 per cent, increase in rates. Pressure Resented

“Even if I were satisfied that there was a very strong case for a further and immediate increase in rates, I would be entirely unwilling to act under the pressure of an organised effort to get markers to withhold their services As I indicated to you in our discussion, I have fully consulted with my Cabinet colleagues and am expressing the firm view of the Government. I had hoped that your executive would see that no responsible Government could take any other attitude and that the threat in your conference resolution would be withdrawn. This would have opened )the way for detailed discussion of the case on its merits.

“I would hope that even at this late stage you and your executive would recognise the force of what I have said and take action accordingly. If you persist in acting in terms of your conference resolution this, as the Government knows and as you yourselves know, could produce serious difficulties in the conduct of the School Certificate examination, and I may well have no choice but to inform the public of the whole situation. However, I shall make no public statement without giving you a further opportunity to get into touch with me.”

“The president did indeed see me,” the Minister said today, “but not to tell me that his association now recognised that no selfresipecting Government would allow itself to be coerced. Instead, he still expected concessions to be made in terms of the .esolution, and his national executive now warns the public about. an ‘alarming situation.’

“The situation is certainly

very worrying, but it is a situation created wholly and solely by the action of the Post-primary Teachers’ Association in passing, and in adhering to. so ill-advised a resolution. But for this resolution. the Department of Education would expect no difficulty whatsoever in recruiting an adequate number of fully qualified markers. ActualUy, the rates for marking School Certificate scripts compare quite favourably with the fees for marking offered by other bodies in New Zealand.

“For example, the School Certificate marker is offered 5s for a three-hour paper, whereas the rate for threehour papers for University Entrance is 4s 6d. In spite of such- facts as these the association asked that the rates that had just been raised 25 per cent, should be rai.sed another 50 per cent, (to -7s 6d for a three-hour paper) Incidentally, it is not true that the increases granted last year were ‘the first for many years.’ The rates were raised in 1957. “With these facts in mind, it is not easy to restrain oneself when the national executive talks about ‘the importance of the School Certificate examination,’ the imperilling of teacher-depart-ment relations, and the possible harm to this year’s candidates. It is a pity that these considerations were not more fully weighed before the association decided to make a direct challenge to

the Government and the department. “The Government and the department need no reminding of the importance of the School Certificate examination and of justice to candidates. If it becomes necessary to do so—and I still greatly hope that it will not —the department will be compelled to take emergency action of various kinds to see that the examination is conducted and that the papers are properly marked. The public can be assured that everything possible will be done to ensure that candidates do not suffer. “The public should not be misled into thinking that my department is taking away from the association any right to represent its members that it has enjoyed in the past. The department is always willing to receive representations on rates of payment for School Certificate marking and has indeed received them in this particular case.

“However, the engagement of markers has been regarded by the department, as by other examining bodies, as a private contract which teachers and others were free to accept or decline according to their own individual wishes. The position is quite different from that in which a teachers’ organisation approaches the department on the remuneration of its members for their regular duties as teachers,” said Mr Tennent.