"MARKING TIME."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 12

"MARKING TIME."

YOUNG TEACHERS. BLOCKED BY MARRIED WOMEN MR. W. t. BOWYSR'B APPEAL A protest againet the employment of married women teachers in cases where there was little difference in the grading marks was made by Mr. W. I. Bowyer at to-day's meeting o( the Auckland Education Board, when the question of an appointment arose. "Is it right that our young teachers should be kept as ailpermitnaries without a chance to advance, while married women gets the jobs?" asked Mr. Bowyer, in pointing out that the alternative appointee was only elightly lower in grading and Mas a male sitpernumary teacher.

Mr. Bowyer said that young teachers were employed as supernumaries in schools because they could not secure a permanent position. It Cost a considerable sum to fit them for their profession and they were, through the employment of married women teachers, forced to "mark time."

The chair'nlftn, Mr. W. J. Campbell, pointed out that under the recent amendment to the Education Act the board had no power t<) refuse applications for a permanent position from a teacher solely on the grounds that the applicant was a married woman. The Education Act, however, prescribed that when applications for a position had been invited bv advertisement'the board should select the candidate whose n&tiie stood highest oft the graded list unless, in the opinion of the board and the senior inspector, some other applicant was mere suitable for the position.