SYDNEY LETTER Fewer Teachers, More Pupils In N.S.W. Schools

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 17

SYDNEY LETTER Fewer Teachers, More Pupils In N.S.W. Schools

(Australian Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY, Dec. 17. The New South Wales Government faces the problem of catering in the New Year for 7000 to 8000 additional secondary pupils with fewer teachers. The State Budget provides for the employment of fewer high school and secondary teachers in 1957 than this year. In addiiton, the Education Department recently discharged several casual teachers without notice. Many were “permanent casuals” who had been with the department for several years. Their dismissal meant that hundreds of children had to be divided among other teachers. The Teachers’ Federation has now asked the Minister for Education (Mr R. J. Heffron) that for the duration of the ban on engaging casual-teach-ers, children be sent home in preference to increasing class loads. Authority is being sought for headmasters to advise parents to keep their children at home until an absent teacher resumes duty or is replaced. The president of the Teachers’ Federation (Mr D. A. Taylor) said the State Government’s reduction of teachers threatened to undermine the education service. Mr Taylor pointed out that in Britain and Scandinavia, secondary classes were limited by statute to 30 and 35 respectively, but next year in New South Wales first, second, and third-year high school classes would range from 45 to 50 pupils. Many high school classes were designed to accommodate 35 pupils and to form classes fo 50 must lead to overcrowding. In country high schools, where fourth and fifth-year classes are not large, they are to be combined for each subject. This will reduce the number of teachers required. But. says Mr Taylor. many teachers will face the impossible task of teaching two classes at the one time.

The Teachers’ Federation believes that nothing will be more discouraging to pupils and parents than making classes so large that the teacher-pupil relationship becomes extremely difficult.

The Sydney University, too, is in a itate of financial crisis. The authorities have warned that if more money is not provided there will be a lowering of education standards. The Sydney “Sun,” in reviewing the position, says it is clear that Australia, which is richer than Britain for each head of population, is getting university education “on the cheap.” The amount of money spent for each full-time student at Sydney University in 1955 was £320. In Britain the average was £469. The ratio of professors, readers and lecturers to students was one member of the staff to 15.3 students. This ratio is nearly twice that of all British universities. New South Wales denominational and agricultural high schools fees are to be increased steeply. They were Xaised this year, but because of increased costs they are to go up again

in next year’s first term. Some fees will go up by 30gns a year for boarders, making them £330 a year. * * ❖ Two State Governments have been forced to borrow from the Federal Government to tide them over financial difficulties. The New South Wales Government has had to obtain nearly £lO million from the Commonwealth in short-term Treasury bills. The Queensland Government last week announced that it had asked, for a special £1 million Commonwealth loan to enable it to pay public servants fortnightly wages and holiday pay for teachers and railwaymThe New South Wales Government’s difficulties are said to be due to a lower scale of payments under the tax reimbursement scheme in the first half of the financial year. Payments will be on a higher scale in the remaining two quarters. In addition, returns from new taxes imposed in the State Budget including the new land tax. will be higher between January 1 and June 30. lhe Treasury bills must be repaid before JU The 3 °u?e Xt Qf short-term Treasury bills was not an unusual form of State finance years ago, but it has not been used recently. . Resort to it now underlines the serious financial problems facing the Government in the 1956-57 and 1957-58 financial yearS - * * * The Transport Department is losing more than 30 parking signs a week at the hands of Sydney prank; sters Since the new “tow away signs were introduced a few weeks ago more than a dozen have been te “We put it down to high spirits more than anything else, sani t^e . department’s traffic engineer, Mr H. A Peach. “A lot of signs get bent wer and left outside night blubs. You can see the inference straight a 'pm-'king signs are recovered from all parts g of Sydney. Many of them are thrown over the sea wall at Rose Ba The police have failed to find one man wffii has a grudge against the ha^gon^-ound F ?overm g Ifgifs with tar? He is the exception, however. The department is convfficZdthat the pranksters have no grudge. * * * Unionists in the big western town of Lithgow are now wearing their nair long. They have placed a black ban on barbers for raising haircut prices by 6d. In spite of protests, the barbers increased their charges to 4s 6d for men and 3s 6d for boys. The combined unions in a Lithgow small arms factory then announced the ban on haircuts. The men work under Federal awards and are trailing about £1 behind those working under State awards. State workers get the basic wage adjustments; the Federal award workers do not. The

Lithgow union men feel they should not have to pay the higher price for haircuts, which are brought about by basic wage rises.

The proportion of European migrants admitted to Australian mental hospitals is “appreciably lower” than that of British migrants or Australians, says Dr. G. M. Redshaw, a Commonwealth Department of Health psychiatrist. Dr. Redshaw says recent figures show that the rate of mental disease is higher among 170,000 International Refugee Organisation migrants who arrived between 1947 and 1950 than among later groups of migrants. These migrants, who had been prisoners of war or inmates of concentration camps, had shown more mental instability than migrants who came later.

A woman motorist drove into police headquarters in Adelaide early one morning and pulled up a few yards f"om the lock-up. She thought it was a dead-end. It was. She was arrested there and charged with driving under the influence of liquor. Later, in the Adelaide Court, the woman told the Magistrate: “I was going to pull up and have a sleep before I went home, but I went to the wrong place.” She was fined £3O and her ’icence was cancelled for nine months.