ACCOMMODATION IN SCHOOLS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25549, 17 July 1948, Page 6

ACCOMMODATION IN SCHOOLS

MINISTER OUTLINES REQUIREMENTS

INCREASED NUMBER OF PUPILS EXPECTED

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, July 16.

To achieve the goal of Training College enrolments needed to give New Zealand the teachers it requires, one in every five secondary school students who passes the school certificate examination will have to make teaching his or her vocation. This was stated in the House of Representatives to-day by the Minister of Education (Mr T. H. McCombs), who said that to meet the expected increase of school pupils, 1800 additional classrooms would be needed for primary schools and 325 for secondary Training College enrolments had risen from 760 in 1947 to 1077 this year, and the Government was aiming at a goal of 1250. Mr McCombs claimed that enhanced salary scales and better conditions had made teaching a much more attractive job. He added that it was not possible now, because of the shortage of teachers, to carry out the recommendations of the committee on pre-school education.

Mr McCombs spoke of a new salary scale for kindergarten teachers, and said it had now been decided to increase the grant for capital expenditure on kindergartens from £ for £ to £2 for £l. This, he thought, would be a big help in building new kindergartens. Mr McCombs denied strongly an allegation he said had been made by the president of the National Party (Mr W. J. Sim) at the party’s conference at Dunedin, that schools were moulding pupils for a socialist State. “Pupils are being trained to think for themselves,” he said.