SCHOOL TEACHERS AND MILITARY SERVICE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16221, 25 May 1918, Page 9

SCHOOL TEACHERS AND MILITARY SERVICE.

TIIE MINISTER'S VIEWS

(SPECIAL TO "THE PRESS.")

DUXECTN, May 24,

In meeting a deputation this afternoon from tho Technical School managers, asking assistance to provide an experimental farm the Minister of Education (tho Hon. J. A. Hanan) asked members whether they were appealing for any of their teachers, and elicited the reply that on principle they would allow them to be called up. Tho Minister said thero was a great agitation for tdd'tions and improvements to the education scheme, but it was difficult to effect reforms unless there were teachers. Ho, as Minister, had no right to appeal—the teachers were not his servants —and he noticed that some of the Boards refused to appeal, although the fact stood out that if any reforms were to be carried out there must be competent teachers. In one breath the deputation were asking him to recognise a sehemc in connexion with the development of the agricultural course, ;ind in the next they informed him that they were prepared to allow their teachers to go to the last man. He viewed with much concern the depletion of teachers, and he believed that proportionately the teachers had provided more enlistments than any other branch of the Public Service, but he thought the limit had about been reached.