Teachers’ Claims Supported

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 1

Teachers’ Claims Supported

A true measure of a Government’s interest in education was the manner in which it treated its teaching service “good education cannot be got on the cheap,” Sir Ronald Gould, an eminent British educationist and leader of the National Union of Teachers for the last 23 years, said in Christchurch yesterday.

It appeared to him that the present salary claims by New Zealand, teachers were reasonable, Sir Ronald Gould said in an interview. “I should have thought that a contented teaching profession would be something every Government would strive to have,” he said. Sir Ronald Gould, who retired as general-secretary of the National Union of Teachers in Britain in April, said that the series of rolling strikes by more than 300,000 teachers there earlier this year had given a level of unity to the British teaching profession it had not known before.

“One of the things you don’t want when teachers are pressing for better conditions is any form of internal dissension—unity in an unprecedented fashion was the peculiar feature of the British strikes.” “WORTH HIRE” Asked if he thought it was “unprofessional” for teachers to talk of strike action, Sir Ronald Gould said that he did not believe it was unprofessional for a person to say he was worth his hire. “If there is no alternative he might have to go on

strike,” he said. Unlike doctors or lawyers who could increase their income merely by putting up their fees, teachers were employed by the Governmen' and any increase in salaries affected the whole economy. “So really in this respect teachers are not in a parallel situation to the other professions, but when these other professions are employed by the State something quite different can happen,” Sir Ronald Gould said, commenting on the successful strike by doctors in Belgium last year. “I regard this talk of professionalism as a cloudy use of words—if you want better

conditions in the long term it i may be necessary in the present to take severe steps.” Sir Ronald Gould said that he had spent his whole life in education encouraging bet-

ter liaison between government bodies dealing with education and those related to local areas and teachers. “The objectives of all these

t groups are the same,” he said. - “But a partnership does not mean a perpetual state of t bliss. In a working arranges ment there are bound to be r differences but the partnership exists because there are common goals.” PUBLIC ACTION Because of a higher educational level, in the community, the time might not be far away when New Zealand would see the formation of spontaneous pressure groups of parents and others who would “needle” the Government to take action on edu-

cation. "This has happened in Britain where groups of highly educated people have banded together—you aren’t going to have graduate mothers, for example, being content with poor quality education—this process could happen here.” Sir Ronald Gould and Lady Gould arrived in Christchurch yesterday afternoon from Dunedin and they will leave today for Wellington. There Sir Ronald will take part in a special meeting of the Educational Institute being held to discuss primary teachers’ salary claims and the possi-, bility of strike action by the primary service.