The present general strike
of public service workers in
Quebec sees teachers there
solidly united in the great
Common Front with organiz-
ed workers of the Quebec
Federation of Labor and the
Confederation of National
Trade Unions. Throughout our
country teachers are today be-
coming increasingly aware of
how they, like other working
people, are being expioited by
monopoly ‘through the govern-
ments it controls.

To obtain the opinions of
one who is directly concerned
with the whole crisis of edu-
cation in Canadian capitalist
society today, the CANADIAN
TRIBUNE interviewed Oscar
Kogan, a school trustee in
York Borough of Metropolitan
Toronto. This is what Mr. Ko-
gan told us:

The post-Sputnik era develop-
ed a panic, unplanned approach
to education, in Canada and
other highly-developed capitalist
countries. The aim was to at-
tempt to catch up with educa-
tional standards and purposes in
the socialist world. Capitalism
thought it could do this by the
mere investment of billions of
dollars in education without
consideration of how these
thousands of educated young
people would advance society’s
needs. The result was that this
lack of p!anning, this panic ap-
proach, produced an overabun-
dance of young people, trained
in specific fields for capitalism’s
purposes, that it cannot use.

This substantiates the position
that Marx, Lenin and others
have stated years ago: Social
production for profit cannot
help but produce chaos under
capitalism.

«

Faced with this ‘“overabun-
dance” of trained, well-educated
people that it cannot employ,
capitalism once again acts in
panic. It withdraws financial
support from educational insti-
tutions. It restricts the educa-
tion of working-class youth by
increasing fees and_ slashing
budgets.

On the one hand, Liberal,
Conservative and Social Credit
governments — all pro-monopoly
—give directives for increased
use of educational facilities and
curricula, all of which they con-
trol. They say all school build-
ings should be used by the com-
munity twenty-four hours a day.
The Ontario High School Curri-
culum Instruction (HSI) calls for
more individual instruction and
greater options for students. On
the other hand, however, these
governments at the same time
slash the budgets for education!
They say one thing, and do an-
other!

Why? Because the financing
of education will no longer be
borne by the people, and this
means that industry and com-
merce would have to pay. This
is what the governments of
monopoly refuse to implement.

There has been an alarming
demonstration of this refusal in
the actions of the Tory govern-
ment of Ontario. Its increase of
fees on the university level will
result in fewer and fewer work-
ing-class families being able to
afford to send their sons and

daughters to university, and this ee

at a time when mass unemploy-
ment means students cannot

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1972—PAGE 12

Teachers and pupils, trustees and taxes

find summer jobs to help pay
their tuition fees. While this
government is spending billions
of dollars to build an education-
al hierarchy staffed mainly by
Americans, as exemplified by the
20-odd million dollar structure
of the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education (OISE),
they have increased university
fees by a minimum of $100. The
Ontario Davis government has
just declared withdrawal of the
$150 grant for each secondary
school graduate receiving 80%
or more in grade 13 marks. It
does this while proposing cynic-
ally to continue the award,
without the $150 grant! Imme-
diate public indignation has al-
ready forced a one-year post-
ponement of this outrageous
decision. It can and, I am con-
fident, will force its complete
cancellation.

The recent imposition by this
reactionary government of ceil-
ings on classroom expenditures

in both secondary and elemen-
tary schools has placed a great-
er workload on teachers, on
caretakers and maintenance per-
sonnel. Our young people suffer
directly from these exploitative
measures. The teachers cannot
give the necessary time to each
student. The caretakers and
maintenance people cannot
maintain essential standards of
cleanliness and daily operational
requirements.

The fact that the Tories have
placed no restrictions on expen-
ditures for the erection of new
school buildings is because the
construction industry forms a
considerable part of the mono-
poly interests this government
represents and which provide its
financial backing. The financing
of education continues to be an
impossible burden on the small
homeowner and the tenant,
while monopoly continues to pay
a low share of education costs,
deriving at the same time the

g Ne

greatest benefit from the educa-
tional systems.
e

The whole method of taxa-
tion for education exposes the
role of monopoly government.
This is true not only of the
Ontario Tories. It has shown
also in teacher-government con-
frontations with the Social-
Credit government of British
Columbia; the teacher-govern-
ment confrontations with the

Liberal governments of Quebec ©

and Nova Scotia; with the Con-
servative governments in New-
foundland and Alberta.

There are differences in the
depth and extent of these con-
frontations. Whereas in Quebec
and B.C. the teachers have seen
fit to become part of the strug-
gle of the labor movement
against monopoly, this unfortun-
ately does not hold true for the
teachers of Ontario. The vote
last month of the Ontario Sec-

Ontario Secondary School Teachers

Federation states its case.

- to be in any way iden

Snowballing crisis in education

tion (OSSTF) against any bi
action to be undertaken Wy
trade union movement If
their own confrontation
Ontario government as %
narrow self-protection, &
than a genuine fight

monopoly’s control of educl)

This refusal by the &
teachers has in fact WM)
their own struggle. It has an
ed in an immediate layoffs
teachers, with the perspet™
additional hundreds of ©
layoffs next year. whi
teacher work load im i
has increased only slightY |
year, government action

; i
year will sharply increas’

All this results directlY 3
the teachers’ refusal t0 fy
involved in joint efforts Me
labor movement, with a sh
ized school caretakers 2™
tenance people, with Phd
and students and sch00 ig,
trustees, to force the Be

ment to change its P 3

poly stance. 1 Mi
A further indication ot h,,
self-defeating narrowne othr
been the complete isold th
Ontario teachers from tat
movements of today f0%, 5
All five Ontario teachel®
tions have continuous

ried
the sentiments of
for example, agains
war of aggression 1
for an independent Cam og
of U.S. domination. 1”) adh,
silent on the predom! fy,
our educational system 4 is A
ican books and texts, “4d !
truth is that it is the oom
who select and order
materials.

Ontario teachers a
Tory-led, have until 1 the
ed to become part ° le
by labor.and the peOP™ ia
reform that would place
den of educational cos ti 3
it belongs—on the Bie? gf {
fits of industry, of DI ~

: 1 hia

School trustees, from
perience of almost og
must in turn take mol ‘49
their responsibilities
ple that elected the! i
ally keeping in ther
the fight against the.
sal to remove educal

t the an
jndOP mg
ni

tenants. Industry a |
merce, benefiting MO ys]
educational systemé,, cos")
made to pay the {yf
training their future 08

As a trustee, I a™ - sf
amazed by the lack one
of Ontario teachers 1 aed
of the day. I feel Ge
trustee does not pert yf
duty unless he Wl {te
the involvement of a ol
in the daily struge a) of
people, be they p? it
nomic. e's rt

It’s a school trust”
sibility to contin a ont
the community, Peabo" A
dents, the organized 1

7
|

(}
i

if |
Wi]

ment and educators nid ifr
of education. This sh?
the manning of th is? 0
curricula and the —
schools. tit
A special responsiDhy
with school trustee> ing
ways and means ‘0 of o
the proper teaching fOr
history and the US© aft
texts and books, 4° fot §
mounting struggl®
Canadian indepe”

enc : d

nt
ean