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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 5. 1966.

Editorials

page 6

Editorials

April 29, 1966

Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of VUWSA.

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.

No conscription

The Conscription Issue has come to the Victoria campus in a small way. Australian and American students at Victoria, for whom conscription for Vietnam is a very real possibility, seem sobered by the prospect.

They express many views when asked their reactions, but one overall point is clear.

Whether or not they support the Vietnam action, they doubt that the use of conscription to bolster the forces there can be justified.

This is strikingly seen in a recent Australian public opinion poll which revealed that 57 per cent of the cross-secton polled did not support the sending of conscript troops to Vietnam.

A plausible case can be made out for the use of conscript troops within New Zealand's territorial limits, even though it is true that this service is militarist, demands considerable sacrifice, and is in one sense a waste of the nation's resources.

But this defensive role is in direct contrast to the offensive nature of the undeclared war in Vietnam.

It can be said with some assurance that were the National Government to go to the country on the issue of conscription for Vietnam—or for the war in Malaysia—or indeed for any war, it would lose the election.

It needs to be made very clear to Mr. Holyoake that this country is in no mood to tolerate conscription for South East Asian theatres of war.

There are good reasons for strengthening this country's forces for a defensive role. But these reasons do not hold when it comes to conscripting this country's youth for a war half a world away.—H.B.R.