ECONOMIES FEARED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27383, 8 May 1950, Page 6

ECONOMIES FEARED

Threat To Educational Magazine TEACHERS MAY PROTEST Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, May 7. It is likely that protests will be aired at the School Teachers’ Conference here this week at the extent to which cuts in expenditure appear to be under way in the Education Department. It appears that economies are planned in the publicity section of the Education Department, and that similar economies may follow in other departments, too. The Education Department’s magazine, Education, designed for school teachers, and printed on a more elaborate scale than most official publications, is stated to be threatened with extinction. At this prospect the Wellington branch of the New Education Fellowship has already entered its protest. “To kill it just at this point'is to strike a serious blow to the children of the country,” says the fellowship. “In our opinion this magazine is the best of its kind in the world, and of inestimable value as a focus for the most informed theory and practice of education in this country. To cease publication would be a blow at the prestige of the country.” The saving of the £6OOO a year reported to be spent on the journal is not considered by the fellowship to be an economy. Labour educationists allege that the Minister of Education, Mr Algie, has already cut grants for school maintenance and stopped some building programmes drawn up while the Labour Government was in office.