Teachers Will Not Act For Month

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32385, 26 August 1970, Page 1

Teachers Will Not Act For Month

(New Zealand Press Association; WELLINGTON, August 25. The Post-Primary Teachers’ Association will call an emergency meeting next month to consider further action if it is not satisfied with salary increases offered by the Government.

This was decided by delegates attending the association’s three - day conference, which opened in Wellington today. The association’s junior vice-president (Mr J. D. Murdoch) moved that P.P.T.A. regional chairmen and execu-

tive members hold the emergency meeting on September 30, or earlier if necessary, if the Government has not offered acceptable salary increases at that time. The motion, which was carried, also proposed that such a meeting should advise the association’s salary negotiators on further action to take. If the meeting were held its cost would be met from the association’s emergency fund.

MOTION OPPOSED Several delegates spoke against the motion on the grounds that such a meeting would not be necessary and that the present annual conference was capable of deciding what future action to take in the event of salary negotiations with the Government proving unsatisfactory. The association’s Wellington regional chairman (Mr L. B. Piper) said his region had supported the concept of direct action, and other regions had done the same.

The executive had the backing of the association, and did not need to call any special conferences. The conference decided that if the paper on secondary staffing schedules, agreed on by the Government and the association, was not announced by the Government by September 15, a special executive meeting would be called to consider further action.

A resolution was passed instructing the association’s executive not to tolerate any undue delay in the promulgation of the staff schedules, and to press for their implementation at the earliest date. TRAINING SCHEME

During its evening session, the conference discussed teacher training, and supported the principle of running on a voluntary basis, a trial system of school-based training for graduate Delegates also decided that greater facilities should be provided at secondary schools to make possible more successful participation in class-room-centred teacher traintog. Addressing the conference, the Minister of Education (Mr Taiboys) said there was a need for a re-evaluation of teachers’ salaries. He said there were various ways in which the teaching profession could be enhanced. One was reward, and the secondary teachers’ salary claim was presently being heard. The Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) was prevented from attending the conference by illness, but said in a paper read by Mr Taiboys that the Government was well aware of the needs of education, and that everything possible was being done to meet them. The Labour Party spokes-

man on education, Mr P. A. Amos. M.P., said inaction and a lack of understanding by those in authority appeared to be the cause of widespread criticism, calls for action and anger in the field of education. Educational change had occurred far too often by way of reaction to provocation—too seldom had it happened positively, he said.