TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27148, 18 September 1953, Page 5

TRAINING OF TEACHERS

STUDENTS TO SIGN AGREEMENT MINIMUM OF THREE « YEARS’ SERVICE (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. September 17. Students entering teachers’ training colleges in future will have to sign an agreement to teach in publicly-con-trolled schools for at least three years, an Education Board official said today. He said the declaration was not a binding contract, with penalties on those who failed to comply with it. Rather it was an acknowledgement of a moral obligation. At present, students training to be teachers sign no form promising to stay in the service. A bond was required till some years before World War 11.

The declaration reads: “I hereby declare that, if admitted to a teachers’ training college, I intend to complete the course of training and thereafter to serve as a teacher in publicly-con-trolled schools in New Zealand.

“I recognise that, as a teacher in training. I would be receiving substantial assistance from public funds, and I acknowledge that, in accepting such assistance. I would be incurring an obligation to give service as a teacher in return, unless circumstances arise which, in the opinion of the Director of Education, justify release from the undertaking. “I therefore promise I will serve as a teacher for at least three years after the conclusion of my course of training. I understand that the fact that I have signed this declaration does not make it obligatory on the Department of Education to employ me or to arrange my employment as a teacher.”