THE PRESS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1978. Roar from the jungle

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 16

THE PRESS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1978. Roar from the jungle

The leaders of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association have taken the secondary-school teachers’ case for higher pay to the public. In particular they have taken it to the parents of the youngsters they are meant to be teaching today. They want the parents, and others, to agree to pay higher salaries

The P.P.T.A. may well win public endorsement for the view that running schools is a wretched job for many teachers. They complain of the pressures of classroom life, of disruptive indiscipline, of strain and disillusionment. Every parent would agree that many teachers are dedicated to their task, work hard, and devote much of their lives to the welfare of the children in their care. But having advertised their distress many teachers might now reflect that their profession is their business, and that the philosophy of education and classroom management, the design of a curriculum, and the standards of performance are very much in the hands of the teaching profession.

Society outside the schools must take some of the blame for shortcomings inside the schools, and the P.P.T.A. is telling the public as much, even though the association's announce-

ment of its views explicitly says that “you can’t blame society.” Who but society and the teachers can be blamed, or praised, for what is happening in the schools?

By inference, the P.P.T.A. is blaming the Government because it has turned down a pay claim—a claim that, in the view of the P.P.T.A., would ensure that the most experienced teachers do not seek better paid and easier jobs elsewhere. In that argument lies the admission, or assertion, that the quality of schooling depends largely on the quality of teachers. Few would dispute that.

Yet the association declines to have the claim settled where it can be settled in a Government tribunal which acts, by law, on behalf of the public. The P.P.T.A. has been aggrieved for several

years at the pay advances made by primary-school teachers and much of the dispute undoubtedly rests upon a desire to regain old margins of pay above teachers in the junior schools. Such a case, and other points in the secondary teachers’ favour, can no doubt be argued. The association should be doing so instead of blundering into a one-day strike and then appealing to the public for a sympathetic response at the last minute.