‘Unemployment education groups’ main concern’

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 6

‘Unemployment education groups’ main concern’

Mrs Vivienne Boyd has been elected chairman of the New Zealand Combined Educational Associations. A major concern of the associations is the effect of unemployment on all sectors of the educational system, said Mrs Boyd, after her first meeting. The associations include the Association of University Teachers, the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes, the Educational Institute, the Free Kindergarten Association, the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, the Teachers’ Colleges Association, the technical institutes, university students and teacher trainees associations. Unemployed parents were not able to cater fully for

their children, and the special needs of these children could not be met because the extra teachers available were not being employed, said Mrs Boyd. At the end of their school careers, young people faced unemployment. If they went on to tertiary education it was usually at the expense of their parents or they had to go into debt, she said. All the associations represented had found employment had had a significant effect on the quality of education provided in various educational institutions. The combined view was that there was an overall “running down” of the education system in New Zealand. All the associations had

plans to improve the situation, said Mrs Boyd. They included a staffing scheme for kindergartens, which has been under consideration by the Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, for three years, the redeployment of teachers and the use of staff and buildings to provide school leavers with useful vocational skills. The Government was “tinkering with patchwork solutions to the whole problem of youth unemployment” and should implement the solutions suggested by the associations, said Mrs Boyd. The policy of running down the system as a whole was dangerous for. any government, she said.