Call for 500 more primary teachers

Press, 12 May 1987, Page 23

Call for 500 more primary teachers

PA Wellington The party which wins the General Election must increase primary teacher numbers by 500 next year to win credibility with the primary teaching profession, said the Educational Institute’s president, Mrs Joan Paske, in Wellington on Saturday. She was speaking at the opening of the annual conference of the Educational Institute, the primary teachers’ union. The first eight years of life were the most important, yet prestige in education lay with secondary schools and universities. They had better buildings, and their teachers were better paid compared with their primary colleagues, said Mrs Paske. “For most of the people who make decisions about

spending this nation’s financial resources, the nearer the child gets to being of age to join the workforce, the greater her or his significance,” Mrs Paske said. She said the Government’s decision last year to slow down the implementation of the 1 to 20 teacher-pupil ratio in junior classes was regrettable.

In order to have any credibility among primary teachers, whichever party won this year’s election would have to speed up that implementation again by authorising 500 extra teachers for 1988, Mrs Paske said.

She also made a plea for a unified teaching profession, with common conditions of service, basic training and salary for

teachers from pre-school through to secondary. Mrs Paske rejected criticism of' the recent Curriculum Review as “trendy” and “liberal,” describing it as a rigorous, powerful document, based on the responses of thousands of people and written by a group of near conservatives like herself, with their feet firmly on the ground. Many of its recommendations were things the institute had been advocating for years. However, one area of disappointment was that the review did not recommend that Maori language be taught in all primary schools. “Institute policy is clear on this, and we will not let up on efforts to have Maori syllabus,” Mrs Paske said.