Trainee teachers’ protest meeting

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32554, 13 March 1971, Page 18

Trainee teachers’ protest meeting

More than 1700 students of the Christchurch Teachers’ College will hold a protest meeting on Monday opposite the South Island headquarters of the Department of Education in Cranmer Square.

The meeting has been organised to protest against possible reductions in Government spending on education. Permission to hold the meeting in Cranmer Square was granted yesterday by the Christchurch City Council.

The meeting will be the first of its type ever held by teacher trainees in the South Island.

It will also be the only one held in the South Island in response to a call from the Student Teachers’ Association of New Zealand—yesterday, the Dunedin Teachers’ College Students’ Association voted against taking any action about possible reductions in education spending. The Christchurch meeting will be addressed by representatives of the New Zealand Educational Institute, the New Zealand Teachers' Colleges Association, the New Zealand Labour Party, the Canterbury University Students’ Association, and the Canterbury ParentTeacher Federation. One of the organisers of the meeting, the president of the Christchurch Teachers’ Coliege (primary) Students’ Association (Mr A. G. Callaghan) said yesterday that he had been given assurances of wide support for the meeting from several other educational organisations. “We know that we are not

alone now in our concern about what we consider should be the top priority in Government thinking,” he said.

“We hope this meeting will be the voice of the teaching profession and educational bodies. Unless education is left alone in the general Government reductions, New Zealand will suffer irreparable harm.” The president of the New

Zealand Teachers’ Colleges Association (Mr D. Cohen, of Hamilton), is reported by the Press Association yesterday to have acclaimed students in their protest against present educational problems. “The thought and spectacle of students being concerned enough about education to want to do something is pleasing when there are so many people doing nothing,” Mr Cohen said.