[unclear: Teaching] Profession [unclear: Attac—ed]

[unclear: ucation] Minister Merv Wellington, not [unclear: n] for his brilliantly constructive ideas [unclear: y] real desire to save the Education vote [unclear: e] forthcoming budget knife-job, has [unclear: up] with one of his most preposte[unclear: schemes] yet. To relieve current tea[unclear: shortages] (which he was originally loa[unclear: admit] existed) he proposes that un— [unclear: d] graduates should be put into class[unclear: s] to learn the job alongside regular [unclear: tea-].

[unclear: achers] are not paid to do this type of [unclear: and] they certainly don't have the next to nothing at all for training them? Never mind the consequences for teaching standards in New Zealand. Never mind reports like "Education Standards in State Schools", received enthusiastically in all education circles last year for the precise way in which it analysed problems and desirable improvement in our schools. Nothing could be further from the suggestions in that report than the idea of crash courses done on the cheap.

Wellington's attitude to PPTA criticism is hard to follow. "We are being hypothetical now and I am not prepared to comment on that...... What I have been doing as Minister is talking about the principles behind the scheme in general terms." In the same breath he claims that the proposal will be "complete and agreed upon" within a month. Just who is going to be doing the agreeing?

He also employs the dubious logic that one of the principles to which I subscribe is that in our training programmes there should be as much scope for practical experience as possible. The position is that there will be teachers in the schools in the initial phase as trainee teachers go into schools on section now. So in conceptual terms there is no real difference." Only, of course, that the "concept" of Teacher Colleges becomes irrelevant. No-one is going to argue that trainee teachers should not have practical classroom experience.

[unclear: to] do the job of the Teachers' Colleges [unclear: e] are among the immediate objections [unclear: PTA] has raised. In the longer term, the [unclear: ne] poses a major threat to education [unclear: w] Zealand. As we all know, patch up [unclear: ions] to "short term" problems have a [unclear: iar] way of becoming permanent fixtures., [unclear: cularly] in times of crisis. Nowhere [unclear: his] be more clearly seen than in the [unclear: ition] field, where temporary accomo[unclear: n] and teaching arrangements have rid[unclear: our] schools for years.

[unclear: is] also well known that the Govern[unclear: is] looking for ways to cut the expen[unclear: f] training teachers (most notably by [unclear: ring] trainee allowances to the level of [unclear: ursary]). What better way than paying [unclear: ellington's] idea constitutes a fundamental attack on the standards and future of the whole teaching profession. Ministers are supposed to stick up for their fields. This latest proposal is one of the most pathetic betrayals we have seen in a long time. It is also one of the clearest examples of the Government's drive to cut its own cost, no matter what the cost to the country.