EDUCATION CUTS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31366, 11 May 1967, Page 14

EDUCATION CUTS

Primary School Fears School committees should be warned to oppose strongly any Government cheese-par-ing on the primary section—“the Cinderella of education,” Mr R. K. Milne told the Canterbury School Committees’ Association last evening. The committees would have to watch that the amenities for which they had fought so long were not taken away, he said.

There could be a tendency to cut expenditure in the primary section rather than in the top section, Mr Milne said. The matter was urgent, said Mrs M. A. E. Rae (Christchurch East). Much-publi-cised decimal currency books had been promised so the primary schoolchildren could be taught about decimal currency. But there was only about one decimal currency book for every three pupils, and they had only just arrived. The sets of decimal currency coins for teaching were only just beginning to arrive.

Similarly the schools had been promised new arithmetic textbooks, but now she wondered if they were going to get them. The old books were out of use—many were no longer fit to be used—and many school committees had spent money on new American textbooks at the request of headmasters.

Mrs Rae moved the association write to the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) and the Federation of School Committees asking about arithmetic textbooks and also new mathematics syllabus handbooks which had been promised but which had not arrived. After further discussion the motion was passed.