N.Z. 'not helping handicapped’

Press, 28 November 1977, Page 14

N.Z. 'not helping handicapped’

PA Nelson New Zealand’s signature on the United Nations declaration of the rights of the mentally handicapped should be struck out, said the national director of the Society for the Intellectually Handicapped (Mr J. B. Munro) in Nelson. The Government was not fulfilling its pledges under the declaration, he said. “Hundreds of New Zealand children are being denied the right to free and State-provided education

because of the unwillingness of the Department of Education to push for a better deal for problem and handicapped children.” he said. Mr Munro, a former Labour member of Parliament for Invercargill, was speaking at the annual meeting of the Nelson Branch of the S.I.H.

“The education system is catering for an expected academic excellence, which means that those on the bottom rung — not necessarily handicapped, but with learning problems — are being neglected.”

“I believe that the politicians are prepared to - support legislation to carry out the U.N. declar- ; ation, but the departmen- I tai officers are not inter- ’ ested and have not drafted - the necessary legislation.” The Minister of Educa- * tion (Mr Gandar) ha« ; recently established z ‘

composite interdepartmental committee to review all existing policies on education of the handicapped, he said. “The issue of New Zealand children missing out on receiving education should be above party politics,” said Mr Munro. New Zealand was “a land of paradoxes.” “Those parents who want to keep a handicapped child at home are given no help, but if they opt out they can put a child into Braemar where it costs $2OO a week to maintain him. Because of the economic pressures and lack of assistance, more and more are having to join the queue.”