By MABEL RICHARDS

School’s in! But in where? Is
the headache facing inumerable
teachers and board members

this September of 1970.

Thousands of students will
flow’ into small ‘“‘portable’’
classrooms — facilities formerly
labelled as temporary, but each
year becoming more permanent.
Thousands more will rise with
the sun to take their place in
Morning shift classes, a
nightmare situation not only for
Students, but for mothers and
teachers as well.

Some youngsters in B.C.’s
Interior are being ‘“‘bussed”’ into
the nearest towns for distances

‘Up to 35 miles. Here again the

Student rises with the sun and
Stands shivering in a snow bank
at a corner on the bus route.
Presumably his enthusiasm for
the educational process dips in
Proportion to the thermometer,
for it takes a red-blooded pioneer
kid to stand up to these

conditions.

This year many students in

Vancouver — just one of the

points on the map — will receive
Sub-standard education,

according to Fritz Bowers, a

trustee.

~~ At least: 19 primary schools

face-overcrowding. They range
from the west side of the city, to
Oakridge, to the east end.

In the same overcrowded
Condition are three secondary
and three post - secondary
Schools which will be forced to
use non - classroom facilities
Such as music and art rooms,
and libraries. Whilst classes take
place there, other students will
go without music, art and library
facilities.

Three high schools, perhaps
more, which have larger enroll-
Ment than the facilities to cope
are Churchill, Thompson and
Windermere.

On the first day of school in the
city more than 27,000 senior

Students registered for classes..

This number is higher than was
anticipated, said Don Pritchard,

BACK TO SCHOOL — BUT

director of research for the
school board, so it is anybody’s
guess’ as to what will or can be

done ‘to meet the extra
enrollment.
UNIVERSITIES

Both UBC and Simon Fraser
are reported to have approxi-
mately the same number of
students as were enrolled last
year, which would appear to
mean that despite rising
population figures, fewer
students can afford to attend.

President of UBC Walter Gage
says a lower quality of education
is inevitable because of low
revenues and construction
grants.

He said UBC was near the
bottom of the list in the amount
of operating funds spent per
student last year. Construction
grants from the provincial
government amounted to under
$6.00 per resident in the
province; Ontario government
gives $17.11 per. capita and
Alberta a whopping $26.87 per
capita for university capital
construction.

Gage says UBC is caught
between increasing demands for
higher education and pressures
from government... _ to
economize.

In his remarks the president
expresses the same concern felt
by the majority. of teachers in
the province. The Teachers’
Federation during a major
campaign two years ago said
they were concerned about the
inequities created by the
formula for financing education
under wtich many school
districts cannot operate success
fully.

They are concerned that not
all of our tax dollars for
education are being invested
wisely or productively, and that
many of our children are not
being allowed, under the govern-
ment’s freeze on funds, to
develop to their full potential.

Where are the classroo

—Photo B.C. Teachers Federation booklet

BACK TO SCHOOL — but there will be no adequate classrooms for
thousands of youngsters this month as students are jammed into
portable classrooms or forced to go on shifts.

The foregoing is but a partial
picture of the situation in the
largest school area, Vancouver.
The situation is as bad, or worse,
in other sections of the province.

Overcrowding, too many
pupils per teacher, lack of
modern facilities, the impossi-
bility of planning. for future
requirements by local authori-
ties, are the frustrations that
prevail from one end of the
province to the other.

. Why?

Why, in one of the richest
provinces in Canada should the
education plant be in such poor
running order?

Thinking people know why, but
only Premier Bennett and
company can tell us: why
education holds such low priority
in the list of needs they feel
important.

We know that the plants at
B.C. Hydro dams are of the most
costly and efficient. We know
that facilities to load coal for
Kaiser Co. at Roberts Bank are
most modern, designed to
function at maximum efficiency.

It is incredible that future
engineers, electronic experts,
coal miners, seamen, nurses and
stenographers should merit
second rate plants in which to
learn trades, and/or any phase of
education they wish to take up.

The Bennett government put a
literal freeze on education funds
more than two years ago. Even
before, government grants were
insufficient to keep pace with
need. The results of those
policies are with us now, and
unless the government is forced
to come to grips with the

ms?

problem, conditions on all levels
of schooling will worsen.

SOCRED FREEZE

The government announced a
freeze on school construction
for the second year this past
month. ‘‘It is evidence of a
serious financial condition,” the
president of the B.C. School
Trustees said recently. “‘It tells
businesses that B.C. appears in a
difficult financial situation.”

But B.C. has a ‘‘business-
mans’ ’’ government. It was
businessmen whom the Bennett
government allowed to lock-out
the building workers who
repeatedly offered to continue
work on schools and hospitals
this past summer, and who were
not allowed to do so.

”

It is the ‘‘businessmans’
government which is today
trying to convince B.C. citizens
that strikes are responsible for
the shortage of classrooms,
forgetting to mention the school
conStruction freeze which began
many months ago. :

Parents whose children face
shift systems, overcrowding,
stop-gap classrooms and lack of
modern equipment will not be
fooled. Through their Home and
School organizations, through
trade unions, through all the
media: at their command they
will make it clear to the Bennett
government that education and
health must assume their
rightful place in government
priorities.

United States military forces
and their South Korean puppets
have perpetrated over 67,000
Separate violations of the
armistice agreement signed
with North Korea in 1953. The
Spy ship Pueblo incident reached
the attention of the North Ameri-
can public; thousands of like
Incidents have not. 4
“These facts were revealed by
Carey Robson, Vancouver grade
12 student, when he returned
from a two week visit to the
Democratic Peoples Republic of
Korea in August.

The people have to remain
constantly on guard against
attack, he said. U.S. heli-

-copters, planes and ships make

2 re eee oe Se

“regular sorties over their land

and into their territorial waters.
Evidence is shown by the
government in the late model
captured guns, material, and
Shattered plane fragments which
are made available to anyone
who wishes to investigate their
charge.

Despite the war threats
against them, the North Koreans
are a happy and busy people,
Robson says. In Pyong Yang, the
capital city, only four buildings
remained standing at the end of
the American-led war of the
early ’50’s. Now it is a city quite
as modern as Vancouver, with
tall apartment buildings
everywhere, and with movie
theatres and cultural palaces to
Serve the people.

Robson and his party—the

ee ae

North Koreans happy people

City Student's Eye-Witness Report

others were from eastern
Canada — visited as well a
‘childrens’ palace’’ which he
said impressed him. This is a
building which students
voluntarily attend as an
auxiliary to their regular
schooling.

The young people pick their
own courses be it music,
gymnastics, chemistry labs,
some division of science, or any
type of hobby or study which
they want to follow.

The child care facilities at the
factories were another phase of
socialist development which
Carey found most interesting.

In the electric locomotive
factory he visited he found
creches for babies from the age
of three months upward, while
their mothers worked nearby,
visiting them several times
during the day. He recalled two
tiny girls, not more than 5 years
of age, played the piano for the
visitors, and played it well
although their feet barely
touched the pedals.

In the factory grounds was a
soccer field for the workers, and
a basket ball court, as well as a
library. The playgrounds for the

ee ee ee

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children included swings, tiny
ferris wheels and “‘plane”’ rides,
amongst other amusements.

Clothing for the children is
supplied by the state, outfits to
harmonize with the seasons
climatic conditions.

Though but a tiny state (just
46.5 thousand square miles) the
Korean Peoples Republic is
making rapid economic
advances. They manufacture
their own electric railroad
locomotives, T.V.’s, radios,
busses, army vehicles, etc. They
have a sizeable silk industry, and
most of the women wear silk
costumes, Robson said.

They rank amongst the top 5
nations of the world in output of
tungsten, graphite and
magnesite.

Most of their agricultural
products are grown on colléctive
farms which are highly
mechanized, and which are
rapidly being modernized with
apartment buildings for those
who work ‘on the farms. As a
matter of fact, Carey says, they
have become so technically
efficient on the collectives that
more than 300 former farmers

_ went into industrial work, where

ive he ome «<7 2

pesonnel was short because of
the deprivations of the war.
Carey Robson says that one of
the reasons for the widespread
riots and protests in Japan today

‘is the re-emergence of Japanese

imperialism amongst the ruling
class. The Democratic Peoples
Republic have a high distrust of
these imperialist forces, because
for 36 years previous to 1945
their country was occupied by
the Japanese.

Out of this grew a strong anti-
Japanese guerrilla movement
which was on the verge of
overthrowing the occupation
forces when the USA dropped the
bomb on Hiroshima. ‘‘Then’’,
said Robson, ‘“‘The Americans
moved into South Korea, shook
hands with the Japanese, and
said ‘“‘We’ll take over now.”’

As is history, the U.S.A.
opened its war against the
Korean people in 1950. It was a.
disaster for the aggressors. They
lost some 379,000 troops of their
own, and close to. 700,009 from’
the ranks of their unwilling
allies.

The Koreans told the Canadian
visitors the horrors of My Lai in
sguth Vietnam were nbthing new ”

i

~

beast Cae BS 1 aS

in the annals of U.S. military
atrocities. Their people too had
suffered many My Lais, but the
butchery had never been made
known to the western world.

Carey brought back with him a
copy of an apology, dated Dec.
23, 1968, made to the govern-
ment of the Peoples Republic
and signed by Maj.-Gen. Gilbert
H. Woodward of the U.S. Army.
It states, in part: ‘“‘The USA
shoulders full responsibility and
solemnly apologizes for the
grave acts of espionage com-
mitted by U.S. ships against the
DPRK after having intruded into
the territorial waters of the
DPRK ... and gives firm
assurance that no U.S. ship will
intrude again in future into the
territorial waters of the
Democratic Peoples Republic of
Korea’.

_. Promises, Promises. . .

Just last month another Ameri-
can spy ship was apprehended

within North Korean territorial
waters, but no word of it was
allowed to reach the U.S. public.
With the unpopularity of the
Vietnam war, US warlords do
not want their citizens to know.
how dangerous a game they play
in Korea as well.

Carey Robson says the North
Korean people are ever on guard
against provocation and attack
from the U.S. and South Korean
puppet forces, but at the same
time they continue to build their
economy and their cultural and
social life, with confidence and
determination. ~'**~°* '?

saya 632 MACatae Sma,

» “PACIFIC TRIBUNE-FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER*18,1970-=PAGE'S" * © = *

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