Psychologists attack Picot report finding

Press, 24 May 1988, Page 3

Psychologists attack Picot report finding

PA Wellington Psychologists have condemned recommendations in the Picot report which they say would see an end to all specialist services to children.

The report to the Government recommending changes to education administration said special education advisers such as psychologists and speech-language therapists should no longer be directly employed by the Education Department.

It instead recommended that special advisers should receive a 40

per cent retainer from the State and the rest of their funding should come from schools who used their The Minister of Education, Mr Lange, said last week this was an area that would need further consideration because it was important schools received the services they needed. The Psychological Setvices Association said yesterday that the Picot committee clearly did not understand how specialist services to children in education worked. Irrespective of how

sensible and timely their general recommendations might be, the committee’s recommendations on specialist services would severely disadvantage sizeable groups of children, said the association’s president, Mr Dennis Standring.

Children living in rural and many provincial areas would have no access to such services because the market would be too small for the services to exist. The effect of the recommendations was to view children as marketable commodities.