Education

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 12

Education

Sir,—Parents, employers, and educationists must surely feel great concern over the statement by the president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association. The fact that the entire present generation of the New Zealand secondary school population is suffering educational deprivation of dismaying proportions is disturbing, and makes us fearful for the future. I know several female ex-teachers in Christchurch alone who would readily re-enter the profession. If adequate daily care were available for their preschool children. The provision of State-controlled nurseries could solve this problem. Admittedly, this would impose an added financial burden on the Government, but should we quibble about costs when the education of our children is at stake?—Yours, etc GRADUATE. August 22, 1968.

Sir,—When the president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association states that 400 Out of 6000 teachers are in-? adequate, inadequately quali-' fled, unsuitable, and , totally unqualified, does he include in the 400 the non-graduate in lowly salary group Al, whose School Certificate classes —in an academic subject—consistently average nearer 60 than 50 per cent in this external examination, or the, graduate. In comparatively exalted salary group 82, whose School Certificate classes—also in an academic A

subject—average with equal consistency nearer 20 than 30 per cent. The pattern is repeated at bursary level, and continued beyond. Should the whole school salary structure be re-examined in terms of service rendered, rather than in terms of virtue implied by qualifications, however ancient, by people from entirely outside the school world, on behalf of the community as a whole?—Yours, etc., SACKED. August 21, 1968.

Sir,—"lnquirer" Is painfully right about pupils doing primary work on secondary premises—a situation backed by much pseudo-professional jargon from educational theorists of North American origin. There is something magnifi cent about the failure to edu cate pupils beyond levels they cannot attain, but should such an optimistic venture realty be undertaken at tax payers’ expense? Teacher frustration and the present artificial staffing shortage (while the sluice gates towards jobs away from the classroom are wide open) are a further indication that rational educational reform is well and truly overdue.— Yours, etc., GENERAL PRACTITIONER. August 22, 1968.