‘Back-to-basics’ call ‘emotional’

Press, 3 July 1978, Page 16

‘Back-to-basics’ call ‘emotional’

The “back-to-basics” outcry is more emotional than rational says Lauris Edmond in his editorial in the June issue of the “New Zealand Post-Prim-ary Teachers’ Association Journal.” Mr Edmond was commenting on a recent television film about education in which Mr J. Watson, director of the Council for Educational Research, said that the level of competence in reading, spelling, and calculating in schools had not changed for many years. Mr Edmond said the anxiety which prompted the outcry was not educational but economic.

“When unemployment levels rise parents worry about their children securing a place in a precarious employment market,” he' said.

Those parents who were in touch with their children’s school work were on the whole impressed with the books, projects, and courses of study they brought home. “If the standard of living continues to fall, parents of young people leaving shcool will be glad of all the intellectual, social, and moral resources a liberal education may have given them, as well as the basic skills which continue to be taught,” Mr Edmond said.