Teachers told to fail schools

Press, 28 August 1978, Page 22

Teachers told to fail schools

i PA Wellintgon i : Teachers have been called on to allow their schools to “collapse” to alert people to a funding crisis. Only principals and parents prevented schools from going bankrupt, said a teacher, Mr P; I. Green, during a debate on school financing held at the annual conference of the Post Primary Teachers’ Association. “If we haven’t the money, we should not provide the service,” said Mr Green, from Tauranga Boys’ College.

Schools were forced to fund-raise, collect school fees, and probably fiddle funds, to keep running. “Let us not collect the money; let the schools collapse; let us show the public and the Government,” he said.

An Auckland region delegate, Miss H. M. Ryburn, principal of Westlake Girls’ High School, agreed that schools fiddled their finances. It was time the P.P.T.A. demanded honesty from the Government on the funding question, she said. New Zealand had a subsidised, rather than a free, education system.

The conference passed a resolution calling on the P.P.T.A. to remind the Government of-fits “continuing failure to fund secondary school education adequately without the need for large and increasing subsidies from parents.”