N.Z. Now A "Backwater” In Education

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30129, 13 May 1963, Page 17

N.Z. Now A "Backwater” In Education

(Neu: Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 12. New Zealand was “an educational backwater giving visitors the impression of having stepped back into history,” the president of the Wellington Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Mr P. J. Armstrong, claimed at the regional conference of the association yesterday. In the late 1930'5, New Zealand had been a leading country in education, but this had changed detrimentally compared with the advances of the rest of the world. Mr Armstrong said. Our teachers were no longer considered capable of teaching English children. The New Zealand pupilteacher ratio was worse than that of most Western European countries, of the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and. he suspected, some underdeveloped countries. He told the conference there was little to report on salaries. Equal pay was being

reimplemented, and qualification anomalies had been rectified after an acrimonious test of strength with the Government. Questions such as corporal punishment, co-education, religion in schools and State aid to private schools had still not been settled. The fear of making firm recommendations on these was rather like most Governments’ fear of changing liquor legislation, he said.