School boards told to stand up to teachers

Press, 7 May 1984, Page 4

School boards told to stand up to teachers

PA Auckland School boards should not give in to teachers who wanted to run schools, the Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, told a meeting of governors at the weekend.

“Whilst I am Minister what is taught and what is examined in schools will not be determined by teachers,” he told the annual conference of the Northern Regional Secondary Schools’ Boards’ Association in Auckland on Saturday. “Of course teachers have the right to express their point of view but they have no right to usurp the legislative authority of other bodies.”

Mr Wellington described the embargo of the 1984 University Entrance examinations planned by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association as “another attempt to secure teacher domination of education.”

(The P.P.T.A. wants University Entrance examinations moved from Form 6 to Form 7.)

The embargo was one of the worst expressions of shop floor tactics in the history of New Zealand education, he said. What was at stake was the control of New Zealand education, Mr Wellington said.

Letters he had received on the University Entrance issue from some school boards used the same language and punctuation as letters from P.P.T.A. branches.

“I wonder then, who is governing that school?” he said.

Pressure was being applied in school after school across New Zealand, he said.

“If it is University Entrance today and you give way to that sort of pressure, what will it be five years

out, School Certificate, university bursary, time-tabl-ing, who knows?”

Mr Wellington said school boards provided the community’s point of view or the parents’ perspective. That was necessary for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to act as a balance to teacher or professional thinking. Governors, as his delegates, should take an “appropriately firm line” over the University Entrance issue, he said.

The first guarantee of excellence and standards was the external examination system. It kept students and teachers up to the mark, he said. The Government would ensure that the class of 1984 would have the opportunity to sit University Entrance. That was their inalienable right, he said. Mr Wellington quoted from six letters he had received in his office during the last two days to show he was not “totally alone” in supporting University Entrance in Form 6. He said he would not discuss the University Entrance issue while the P.P.T.A. embargo remained. But, when questioned, he said that did not imply there would be discussions if the embargo was lifted. After Mr Wellington’s address the president of the Northern Region Boards’ Association, Mr Glen Barnard, told Mr Wellington he viewed the P.P.T.A.’s actions with alarm. “I would call on the P.P.T.A. to call off their industrial threats,” he said. “Let us get down to discussion.”

Mr. Barnard said school boards were in control. If they were not, they were a nonsense.

“We will listen, but we will make the final deci-

sions,” he said. Mr Wellington also faced questioning about the June 1 deadline for submissions on the core curriculum review.

Some governors said they had not received copies of the review and others said they needed more time to arrange meetings of parents and boards to discuss it.

One school said its prospectus for 1985 was posted out in June so any curriculum changes could not be included.

Mr Wellington said that 15,000 copies of the review had been printed and had been available from his office if extra were needed.

He wondered why people did not use photo-copying machines. The deadline was not a question of being in an excessive hurry but fitted in with Parliament’s timetable, he said.

Groups or individuals who missed the deadline would still get a chance to make submissions when the bill incorporating changes to the Education Act went before a select committee.

Mr Wellington also announced an increase in the boarding bursary from ?980 a year to $lO6O.

He said it now provided parents of boarders with nearly 50 per cent of the average state hostel fee.