Education Bd criticises bond campaign

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 1

Education Bd criticises bond campaign

Criticism of the student-teacher campaign against the Government teaching bond was made at a meeting of the Canterbury Education Board yesterday.

The chairman of the board (Mr A. S. Murray), referred tq a pamphlet that, is being distributed to prospective teacher trainees by the Christchurch representatives of the Student Teacher Association of New Zealand.

This pamphlet, Mr Murray said, might deter some young people from entering the teaching service. The pamphlet declares that where a student in his first year of training was told by the Department of Education that he was unsuitable he might still be required to pay the bond (which amounts to $6OO over a three-year training course). “In actual fact the only case in which such a student would be required to pay the bond would be when he was wilfully negligent in his college work or had been guilty of a serious misdemeanour,” Mr Murray said. Commenting on this statement, the president of the Christchurch Teachers’ College (primary) Students’ Association (Mr R. A. Johnstone), said that although Mr Murray’s view might apply to the Canterbury Education Board’s district "it certainly is not true at a national level.”

“The reasons for enforce ment of the bond vary from board district to board district and we must conclude that there are unfair differences in interpretation,” Mr Johnstone said. He cited the cases of two

students who recently left the Auckland Teachers’ College. “Both had made little effort with their studies and generally had an unprofessional outlook. The student who

asked to be allowed to leave did not have to pay back the bond but the student who was told to leave had to repay the bond in full. “In operation, then, the bonding system seems almost a farce,” Mr Johnstone said.