Now that the Education Fightback campaign appears to be over, or at least with nothing actively going on in it that I can see, our adversaries are coming out of the woodwork to challenge the various allegations that were made in the course of that campaign about the Government's attitude to education. Bill Renwick, Director-General of Education, was widely reported recently, saying that the amount voted to Education in the last Budget represented a 10.8°/o increase from last year, and that people who argued that the Government was cutting back on educational expenditure were talking through a hole in their hat.

It is certainly true that, if we ignore the supplementary grant in October last year, the increase was l0.8%. However as this is less than the rate of inflation during that period, it is hard to really claim that Government is maintaining its commitment to education. This "commitment" will no doubt be touted around even more when the supplementary estimates are announced later in the year, which are expected to put another $150 million into education. There is however one particularly important point to remember: the supplementary grants will be used almost entirely for increases in salaries, which presently constitute 68% of Vote Education. So the supplementary allowances should not be seen as real increases in expenditure (in the sense of allowing more thing to be done) but rather as necessry increases in expenditure to retain existing levels of activity.

But it is hard to believe that Renwick's statements have fooled anyone. The attitude of Government is quite clearly revealed by the statements of our hapless Minister of Education. His suggestions of "on-the-job" training for secondary school teachers, the new TSG, a refusal to improve conditions of Kindergarten teachers, closures of teachers' training colleges all bear witness to a Government that is either stupid or is thinking of ways of trimming expenditure. Indeed, Merv's very appointment of Minister of Education, a senior portfolio, given to a junior minister, suggests that Muldoon has no real intention of giving education a strong voice in cabinet.