Attacked On Education

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32358, 25 July 1970, Page 1

Attacked On Education

(From Our Own Reporter)

ROTORUA, July 24.

Outright attacks in the field of education were launched on the Government during the evening session of the conference. Many speakers were supporting a call for a conference on the development of education (a Labour policy plank), with a wide range of criticisms of the present education service.

The delegates approved a Wellington remit urging the Government to hold an education priorities conference and also a Waikato remit demanding the improving of facilities for rural education.

Several delegates insisted that the Government’s spending on education was still not high enough. One accused the Government of depopulating the countryside. Staff vacancies existed in schools all over the country, and the time for propping up the present system had passed, said others. Before the session ended it was clear that many delegates were in a mood to point out what they thought were the short-comings of the Government.

Mr J. Blackie (Taupo) said: “If we are to believe that the infantile statement made by the Minister of Education on

television is Government thinking, then this conference must show the nation that it is not National Party thinking." The Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon) later told the delegates- that personal attacks on the Minister of Education were not warranted. Applause greeted this rebuke, and the conference appeared to accept Mr Muldoon’s comment that the funds for education did not come from a bottomless bucket The Labour Party relied on the politics of grievance, he said.