Education

School bell go ding-dong-ding. The children all line up. They do what they are told. Their little lives are all laid out. They mind their manners well. Their little lives are all laid out. Oh, teachers of the world: teach them to fake it well. Just teach them not to criticize, to 'yes' the bosses, impress the clients. Just get them into the factories, into production, get them into line. Mama don't seem to care if she may break their hearts. She clips their wings off. They never learn to fly. Buffy Sainte-Marie

The critical importance of education in either maintaining the present society, or developing an alternative to it, makes education an area of high priority for the Values Party.

The Values Party has followed these guidelines in developing an education policy:

• education is the development of the whole person (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, individual, economic, political, social) rather than simply the processing of the person into society;
• equal access to education is one of the entitlements of New Zealand citizens;
• education is a lifelong growth and not something confined to formal institutions or particular age- groups;
• decentralisation of the administration of education Is a necessary long-term goal, to be achieved through making functions and decisions the responsibility of the most appropriate levels;
• as school structures and procedures are a statement to coming generations of what society expects of its citizens, the objectives and procedures of co-operation and participatory democracy must be visible in the administration of schools:
• equality of educational opportunity requires that there be diversity in educational styles to allow for individual differences and preferences; but diversity without equal opportunity of access is iniquitous.

If New Zealand is to develop a just, co-operative, and community-based society, education is a vital aspect of that development. Our present system of education is competitive, its administration hierarchical, and effective power rests in the hands of a few.

In 1972 the Values Party said that “our education system is not equipping young people with the skills they need to cope with life in a changing world ... At the present time many of the topics which our children are being taught are irrelevant to their needs, and the way in which they are being taught renders them of even less value”. While the criticism remains valid, we feel that it would be no improvement just to update the system so that it caters better to a society which is fundamentally competitive and materialistic.

The intentions behind the Educational Development Conference were laudable, and the Values Party would implement the major recommendations of the final report of the Advisory Council on Educational Planning.

Some of the immediate problems facing education that haven't been addressed adequately by recent governments or the Conference include the whole relationship between education and work, the impossibility of “second chance” education when adults need to receive a full-time wage to survive, the developing exclusiveness of teachers, an admin- istrative structure which prevents people at all levels - central, regional, or local school - from working efficiently and effectively, and the necessity for a hard look at the comparative facilities and roles of technical institutes and universities.

Deeper problems haven't really been tackled at all. As we approach the centenary of our present system in New Zealand, 70 per cent of the labour force have no educational qualification at all; the ratio of males who are qualified to females is about 3:1; there is a conservative estimate of between 50,000 and 100,000 adult New Zealanders who are virtually illiterate; and rural, lower-class or maori students make do with poorer facilities in an alien system.

Funding

Curriculum and Assessment

Some changes are happening to our education system. We are not sure that these are always for the better or are always co-ordinated. Internal assessment, for example, is an advance in itself, but if it means that students’ and teachers’ workloads are increased still further - many secondary students are spending 60 and 70 hours a week on school work even now - better teacher training, especially in-service training, and better conditions of work for teachers, are a necessary adjunct.

Pre-School

Schools

Management of a school should be in the hands of those familiar with the school. Decision-making procedures should anticipate the students’ rights.and responsibilities as citizens. There should be more attention paid to making schools more congenial environments for both pupils and staff. Pupils need to be treated like human beings rather than as components of mass production.

Instead of harrassing and prosecuting truants and those who are unable to adapt to school, the Values Party would investigate alternative methods of education more suited to their needs.

Intermediate Schools

We believe that instead of a healthy mixing of age groups such as exists in traditional primary schools, intermediate schools isolate children at a particularly awkward age from the influences of and responsi- bilities to older and younger children. In teaching subjects rather than children, intermediate schools pander to obsessions with prestige learning, at an early stage, of science and languages. In removing children from the smaller local primary school, intermediates force children to travel further, to a larger institution, with which neither they nor their parents are likely to develop a sense of belonging.

Diversity and Equality

The Values Party recognises the need for alternatives in education but rejects the concept of elitist independent schools.

Tertiary and Continuing Education

Teachers

Often principals are the best teachers in the service, but their administrative duties keep them out of the classroom. Few have any administrative or manage- ment training before taking up their jobs.

Education and the Community

The Values Party sees Community Education Councils as having sufficient responsibilities to justify their having accessible offices. As well as displaying work from local schools, community education offices would advise and enrol local students, house specialist equipment and staff, provide secretarial and co-ordinating services to local schools, and promote education in the community.

The Values Party strongly supports regular school involvement with the community and especially parents in both directions, outsiders coming in and making use of school plant, and students going out to help the community and experience how the adult world works. We see this as the special responsibility of Community Education Councils in liaison with School Councils, and would ensure a specific financial allocation from central government to support and encourage it.