'’Teachers need work support’

Press, 18 January 1979, Page 15

'’Teachers need work support’

PA Wellington Government failure to revolutionise teacher training will result in a “revolution” within New Zealand schools, according to the Social Credit spokesman on education, Mr Peter Edmonds. Mr Edmonds said that ‘the success of a move announced by the Minister of Education (Mr Wellington) to increase the num•ber of post-primary teachers ran the risk of merely increasing the number of frustrated teachers. Schools needed far more than a teacher increase; they needed fully trained and qualified staff to perform the tasks expected of teachers today, Mr Edmonds said.

The Post-Primary Teachers’ Association had called for more adequate counselling facilities, more school counsellors, and more ancillary staff in secondare' schools.

‘‘The efforts are praiseworthy, but the P.P.T.A. should devote more effort to supporting teachers who are actually in the forefront, barely coping as difficulties arise,

instead of hoping somewhat vainly from a Government — which places education relatively low in its priorities — for relief from an influx of counsellors,” said Mr Edmonds.

The basic general bewilderment engendered in children by so many families because of social pressures must be rectified by the school before children were receptive to an experienced teacher. Two lines of remedial action were needed, either to increase trained counsellors in schools or retrain teachers to undertake social guidance programmes.

Asserting that counsellors who were not teachers could not do the job as effectively as teachers who were also counsellors, Mr Edmonds said teacher training and retraining were imperative in the interests of children, teachers, and the economy. Mr Edmonds called for a reduction in the teachers’ colleges tutor-student ratio, retraining incentives for teachers, and adequate retraining programmes to enable teachers “to regain their confidence.”