'Back-tobasics’ lobby criticised

Press, 15 August 1978, Page 6

' Back-to-basics’ lobby criticised

If rhe “back-to-basics” lobby, who often seem to be members of fundamentalist religious fringe groups, spent more of their energy on trying to make New Zealand a more just society and less on attacking teachers, they would be making a more worth-while contribution, said Mr C. C. McCready, secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Hotel Workers’ Union, to an open forum on “back-to-basics” last evening.

“I have never yet seen one of these people among the many groups helping the weak and disadvantaged sections of our society,” said Mr McCready. “I believe that our teachers are better than we deserve and that they make a greater contribution to the well-being of the community than almost any other group, but their salaries do not reflect this,” he said. “When you compare their salaries with some of the less useful or productive professional . groups, we can hardly claim that we hold teachers in very high regard. Yet these are the people that we expect to immunise our children against our own greed, sloth, weakness and stupidity.” The. present education system did not do enough to redress the imbalance between schools in the wealthier suburbs and those in the poorer areas of communities, he said. “If we, as a society, really believe that we want all of our children to have an equal chance, we will have to be more determined about it than we have been.” said Mr McCready. He told the forum that the education system did not do enough to identify and deal with those who had fallen behind what could be expected of them. Nor did it provide additional assistance [for a second or third chance. Another speaker at the forum, Mr J. Tocker, of the Chamber of Commerce, also said that not enough was being done to protect children who fell behind. He defined the core of the ' “back-to-basics” lobby as being listening, writing, spelling, handwriting and arithmetic. He suggested that more time should be spent teaching these basic skills, through a more formal type of instruction than was present in many schools today.