Teachers challenge M.P. on 'Reds’

Press, 7 June 1980, Page 2

Teachers challenge M.P. on 'Reds’

.Mr N. P. H. Jones, the National member of Parliament for Invercargill, has been called upon to repeat outside the House his allegations of “Left-wing infiltration” in schools. ?A meeting of the Canterbury region of the Post-Pri-mary Teachers’ Association passed a motion expressing “litter contempt” for the “cowardly and despicable attack” by Mr- Jones on the integrity of secondary-school teachers. Mr Jones said earlier this tyeek that children were being “instructed” to question recognised values and to oppose recognised standards of behaviour. History and geography had been “thrown out” for' so-called liberal studies, most of which was a “licence for socialist-tending teachers to let their own prejudices take over.”/ -He also said that socialists knew that the most effective way of destroying life under private enterprise was to do it'through the education system. -The meeting’s chairman (Mr E - W- Campbell) said that the several hundred history and geography teachers in Canterbury would be surprised to learn that the subjects they were teaching no longer existed and had been replaced by liberal studies. ;“I have no doubt that this surprise is shared by the pupils, the Education Department and, probably the Minister of Education (Mr, Wellington). These supposed curriculum changes exist only in-, the over-active and confused imagination of the Member for Invercargill.” -Other comments made by Mr Jones could be viewed in tlfe same light. “If Mr Jones really believes what he has said, and can substantiate his statements, let him relinquish the protection of Parliamenjtary privilege and repeat his allegations in an arena where .they can be effectively challenged,” Mr Campbell said.