Teachers “Happy” After Talks With Minister

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32360, 28 July 1970, Page 1

Teachers “Happy” After Talks With Minister

(New Zealand Press Association; WELLINGTON, July 27. Representatives of the rost-rnmary Teachers’ Association left a meeting with the Minister of Education (Mr Taiboys) tonight, happy about his assurances that he was extremely sympathetic and was doing his utmost to solve the problems teachers were facing.

This was said by the association’s secretary (Mr P. W. Boag), who, with his president (Mr E. F. Hamill), spent almost two hours with Mr Taiboys discussing the Minister’s “apparent lack of sympathy and understanding” of the education system after his appearance on the “Gallery” programme last week.

Hunter) and secretary (Mr E. J. Simmonds) to discuss the same subject—his television appearance. They presented Mr Taiboys with a letter which told him that never during Mr Simmonds’s association with the institute had there been such an and immediate response to any statement or action by a Minister of Education.” In Auckland today, a stopwork meeting of the Seddon High School Post-Primary Teachers’ Association branch decided - to ask the Auckland regional management committee of the P.P.T.A. to call a regional stop-work meeting within two weeks. A special meeting of the committee and management of the Auckland P.P.T.A. made an urgent request for a meeting of the Education Services Committee, which will study secondary school teachers salary claims, to be put forward a fortnight. The regional chairman (Mr R. E. M. Hodge) said tonight that this meeting was originally scheduled for August 15, but Auckland P.P.T.A. members regarded this delay as quite intolerable. A meeting of staff from 18

schools in the Tamaki area, Auckland, decided to ask the national president of the Educational Institute to reply to the statements of Mr Taiboys. Staff at Lynfield College; Auckland, who met after school, passed a vote of noconfidence in Mr Taiboys, and decided to send a telegram to the Prime Minister. More than 100 members of the student branch of the P.P.T.A. at the Auckland Secondary Teachers* College sent telegrams to Mr Taiboys, Sir Keith Holyoake and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk).

Senior officials from the department were at the meeting. Discussions on staffing were held, Mr Boag said, and the Minister undertook, in terms of the agreement reached between the P.P.T.A. and the Government in 1968, that he would continue to revise secondary school staffing schedules each year. Agreement had been reached between the department and the association on the size of classes below Form VI for 1971. “The Minister has undertaken to present the recommendations of this joint paper to the Government and urge its acceptance as quickly as possible," Mr Boag said.

The association will be issuing a statement to its members and Mr Hamill expects them to be happy to accept his and Mr Boag’s assurances. The delegation also discussed the P.P.TAJs salary claim, which has been lodged with the Education Service Committee. Mr Boag said the first meeting would be held on August 14, three weeks earlier than required by statute. “We accepted the assurance from the Department of Education that it would work on this claim with all possible speed,” he said. “Both the department and the Minister gave an undertaking for the claim to be given full consideration and handled urgently.”

As soon as the two P.P.T.A. representatives left, Mr Taiboys saw the Educational Institute’s president (Mr H. M.