Education policy not this way

It Took only his first public statement for the new NZUSA president, Mr. Mountain, to demonstrate NZUSA's complete lack of understanding of the problems of New Zealand education.

Mr. Mountain announced that NZUSA was promoting an Educational Development conference similar to the Agricultural Development conference. But the shortest investigation demonstrates quite clearly that a development conference (be it organised like the Industrial, Export, or the Agricultural one) is totally unsuitable for education. For each of them had the following characteristics.

At the beginning there would be announced the broad outlines of the government policy on the subject of the conference.

Each conference then went away, discussed the opening addresses, and returned with a large number of resolutions. Many of these were meaningless or unimplementable, and the rest were the sort of recommendations which any reasonably competent minister, having heard so often before, would have stifled a yawn on hearing again.

In other words, a development conference has got nothing to do with getting 200 people together and asking them to vote on future policy. What these conferences are, is the government telling those people about their policy and telling them by giving them the broad outlines of the policy and asking them to fill in the details. And, of course, to ensure that the right conclusions are reached, the background papers and the participants are accordingly chosen.

There is nothing dishonest about such a conference, to the contrary it is part of our democratic process, for here is the government encouraging debate about its policies —even if the initial debate is loaded.

What relevance has such a conference to do with education policy? Nix. for the simple reason that this government (or the opposition) has not got a policy that could be discussed at a conference. At best an Educational Development conference could discuss the fact that the government did not have a policy, but here, Mr. Mountain and NZUSA, here is the crux of the problem of policy formation. No conference can form a policy on education which is worth the paper it is written on. Policies are just not formed this way.

Perhaps Mr. Mountain and company will proceed with the politically spectacular development conference but we hope not. For if they turn their efforts from this and make a genuine effort to form an education policy, in two years we may have one we can be proud of one with objectives and the means of attaining these, dovetailed to meet the needs of New Zealand society. But it will require that dangerous and difficult task for politicians of thinking constructively.—B.H.E.