Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 18. 26th July 1973

Education Development into Futility

page 9

Education Development into Futility

The short history of the educational development conference is revealing of certain differences between the National and the Labour Parties. Differences in style and public relations persuasion, if not of educational ideology or social intent.

The National Party undoubtedly conceived the Conference as a hasty election ploy, setting up a marvellous, high-spirited, incredibly ill-organised nosh-up for various party faithful and educationally significant academics around the country. Preparation was limited, and delegates came to the conference unprepared for serious discussion. Its product, beyond hangovers, was the creation of a number of working parties which were to grind off into the sunset, masticating submissions and papers, eventually to produce a digest of the people's wishes.

Labour has a different view of the involvement of the electorate in the affairs which most effect them. They prefer to go closer to the people, to demonstrably prove their desire to consult with the electorate, to consider its views and to use them in its decisions.

Thus, on taking office, the Minister announced a new structure Cor the Conference, which settled uncomfortably on the old. Suddenly the value of submissions and papers was usurped by open discussion in a series of provinical conferences.

Throughout the entire affair the people of this country have been mollified with the suggestion that "things are happening ", that in fact they might for once be instrumental in effecting the direction of one of our major institutions. Many have been prepared to hold off in their complaints and desire for change in the belief that their time will come.

That all this is patently false should be obvious. The Minister of Education has a low, low priority in the Cabinet — he is the 13th in the order of seniority, and is not a decisive man. He is known as a ditherer, and to have a "cluttered mind". Any who have listened to his speeches on television and radio or read his press releases cannot help but be impressed by his air of uninformed enthusiasm. Issues follow hot on the heels of each other - none is ever taken up in depth, most are never heard of again. An instance of this is the question of the school leaving age, or innovations in technical education, or of the review of tertiary institutions. I suspect that Amos is a genuinely concerned educationalist — but the qualities that endear him to Kirk are not those which make him a good Minister.

Furthermore the Government — National or Labour — has never intimated that they will pay the slightest attention to what the people write or say. In fact, the image one has is exactly the opposite — they will listen, then do what they want anyway. (Or in this case, what Kirk wants Amos to do.) A clue to governmental thinking on the issue is given in a letter to the National Secretary of NZEI from the Minister of Education.

"I believe," he wrote, "that it is important for New Zealanders as a whole to feel that they have some say, albeit small, in the formulation of future policy. In general people tend to accept and cooperate with new ventures if they feel that they have been consulted in a democratic way."

The important omission here is the belief that the people have anything to add to policy formulations. The most obvious intent is to dupe them into thinking that they can. It is human engineering at its worst.

It might occur to the naive that it is bad politics to make a show of consulting the people, arousing their hopes in order to dash them harder on the rocks of autocratic reality, or to pretend that the people ever had anything to offer in the first place.

In fact the whole consultation/submission/deputation roundabout serves a powerful political purpose; in creating a form of democratic process it enhances the chance of failure, increasing the probability of resignation, acquiescence, and apathy. Because it appears objective and valid it prevents despair, unrest and disruption.

Training for political impotence, of which the Educational Development Conference is an important lesson, begins in the schools. The school council is the cornerstone of this ritual. Letters to MPs, petitions, carefully composed submissions to Commissions of Enquiry, well rehearsed deputations to Ministers, are the continuing story. Occasional grand conferences are the highlights. Through all these efforts we are cajoled into thinking that we in fact are really 'doing something' when we prepare and present a petition. The point is that we know before hand that nothing will change. Just as the school council is encouraged to suggest new ways of improving the school with the foreknowledge that most will be refused, so we are encouraged to participate in Conferences. One marvels at our capacity to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are 'doing something' if we are not really doing anything at all except to carry out a ritual of effort and denial: "With earnestness we will petition if with compassion you will promise to refuse." (Jonothan Kozol)

In fact such capacity is not unusual, but is the result of ten or twelve years of instruction in political indifference. We have been denied for years the right to participate, we have become afraid of participation. Our experience in the schools is one of oppression, of subjection to the authority of others. Little wonder that most of us feel inadequate; intimidated by authority figures we come eventually to believe in our own inferiority. Convinced of our incapacity to lead. And for those few among us who dare to question, who recognise their oppression and wish it otherwise? We research, we petition, we visit Ministers. And are perhaps relieved when our petitions fail, or are secretly satisfied when the Minister assures us that "his department is investigating", or that "a position paper is being prepared", or that "he will most certainly look into the matter". The Minister is playing the game as our teachers taught us. Now we can enjoy the catharsis of having 'acted', which is not action but a pale imitation. To have succeeded would have meant responsibility for the future was ours, would have granted us authority and power. To most of us this is an alien condition, for which we are hardly prepared.

"My daddy is on Accountants. He works in the city for the B.N.Z." "So what my dad is a university lecture and he works for N.A.C., B.P.D.S.I.R., R.N.Z.A.F, I.I.T., I.B.M and Ivon Wotkins Dow"

In school teachers stress the virtues of social order. They emphasise that there are no serious contradictions in this dominion and that there is little need for conflict or rage. A great deal of impotence depends upon this pretence. To keep us from reflecting too long on our social conditions, or examining the nature of our impotence, we are encouraged to new enthusiasms, new projects. Who can doubt this in light of Labour's enthusiastic defence of the environment or its championing of the Pacific people against French testing.

To the same ends, those of us who are burdened by our impotence are encouraged to join the play of government. We are invited onto working parties, coopted into advisory bodies and invited to conferences.

Is it possible, given the nature of our so small democratic process for the people to call Amos' bluff? Sadly, one must say no. For the government is subject to pressure from a wide variety of groups, not least of which is the business community. Even if government were to entertain the ideal of participatory democracy, it would be dissuaded by capital pressures; if given full control of their communities, the people might rule in their own interests rather than in the interests of profit. Were those of us who envisages better way of learning allowed control, we would undoubtedly increase the numbers of radical youth, and thus the pressure for socialist change.

Before we achieve our aims for progressive education, it will be necessary to create the pre-conditions of reform — radically altered economic and political control. It is impossible to achieve educational change without at the same time removing power from the hands of the capitalist ruling class.

Perhaps what we can do is to arouse the awareness among others of the relationship between our educational experience, and the capitalist nature of our society, of the economic reasons why many must fail in order to sustain the privileges of the few. Why large proportions of our fellows are ruthlessly persuaded of their stupidity in order that the factory floor is full. And why our political education is negative, denying, and emasculating.

by Christine Koloski