Teachers fear spending cuts

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 7

Teachers fear spending cuts

Fearing the worst but expecting the best. This is the attitude of New Zealand teachers to possible cuts in education spending.

The two main teachers’ organisations, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute, describe as “frightening" the growing list of possible cuts. Teachers accept that cuts will be made in education spending, which this year will amount to more than S6som. What they do not accept is the uncertain future of such spending. The end of the relief teacher scheme in secondan schools, which cost SM3.B,

an inadequate 10 per cent interim increase in grants to schools for running costs, a threatened reduction in the intake of first-year students to primary teachers’ colleges in 1977, and the refusal of the Government to pay the January cost-of-living allowance to first-year teacher trainees are among a few of the suggested spending cuts that teachers feel may cause unrest in education.

If the relief-teacher scheme brought in by the National Government were abandoned, and the Post Primary Teachers’ Association fear that it may be, hen the reaction from secandary teachers is likely to >e “swift and demanding,” iccording to the president of the P.P.T.A. (Mr G. Warner).

He said from Wellington yesterday that the scheme (which makes relieving teachers available to take t’ e place of those teachers who are off work sick ot attending in-service training courses) had been of tremendous benefit to schools and pupils, and ending or curtailing it would have disastrous effects. in some secondary schools, teachers have hac

to curtail science classes because the grants for running expenses have been used, and no further finance is available for new equipment. Such subjects as art and music teaching, regarded by some members of the Government as “frills,” are also candidates for financial cuts. The P.P.T.A. fears that a statement last month by the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) that it was time schools paid more attention to basic subjects is cited as one example of the way the Government may move. All sections of the Department of Education have been told to reduce expenditure, but one section, the advisory and psychological services, has found the direction particularly difficult. These people must travel extensively, and for educational psychologists cuts in allowances would greatly hamper their work. The P.P.T.A, yesterday requested a meeting with the Director-General of Education (Mr W. L. Renwick) to discuss the Government’s decision not to pay the January cost-of-living increase to first year teacher trainees. This meeting will be held this afternoon. The Educational Institute, the P.P.T.A., the University Students’ Association, and the Student Teachers’ Association have

also written a combined letter to the Minister of Education (Mr Gandar) requesting a joint meeting with him on the issue.

One theory is that hints of cuts are being circulated in the hope that teachers will accept the “ploy” of the Government’s calling for more care in educational spending and that they will then breathe a sigh of relief when the education provisions of the Budget are announced.