Cuts campaign ‘decietful’

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 18

Cuts campaign ‘decietful’

PA New Plymouth The “Education Cuts Don’t Heal” campaigns initiated within the Education Institute, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association and the Students’ Association are misleading and deceitful, according to the Government’s Senior Whip, Mr A. P. D. Friedlander.

An examination of education spending in the last decade had led him to question the integrity of those responsible for the campaigns, he said, at the opening of a school gymnasium store in his New Plymouth electorate. The campaigns were clearly misleading and deceitful and had had their origin among those more interested in their own political views than in the interests and well-being of the education system. Public confidence needed to be developed in the education system. All people interested in education from early childhood through to university had

to stop allowing selfishly motivated people to undermine the confidence and enthusiasm of competent and dedicated teachers who were doing an outstanding job. It was more than time that “politically motivated pressure groups” ceased the “stupid denigation” of the education system. Education was being funded generously and its standard was high. With co-operation and good will it could be made even better-

The Government’s infla-tion-adjusted education spending per student was now higher than it had ever been. An analysis of education votes for the last 15 years showed that primary-school spending had risen from $9B a child in 1965-66 to $5BO in 1979-80. The figures for pre-school, secondaryschool and university education w*ere equally as impressive. There had been nd education-spending cuts in recent years.