OLDER WOMEN AS TEACHERS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28541, 21 March 1958, Page 12

OLDER WOMEN AS TEACHERS

“Many CouM Take Courses” (From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, March 20. “Pressure cooker’’ courses for married women of 40 and over were discussed at the Dominion Federation of School Committees’ Association national conference in Timaru today. Proposing a remit that the Education Department should reconsider its decision to debar married women of 40 or over from taking its Division T course (usually called' the “pressure cooker” course), Mrs (A. Booth (Hutt Valley) jsaid she thought there ipust be many women who could take the courses and serve from 10 to 16 years successfully. The remit was a step towards solving the staffing problem, said Mrs Booth. The relaxing of family demands was notiisually apparent before the age of 40 was reached and years of caring for children and attending Plunket, kindergarten, mothers* clubs, parent-teacher meetings, and adult education lectures had developed in many women a knowledge and understanding, tempered by maturity, which it seemed wrong to waste.

The remit said that with smaller families, improved health and the increased life expectancy of today, those women were faced with many years of free time. “Large numbers of this particular generation have been frustrated teachers from the start,” it said, “having been refused admission to Training College in the depression years.” The conference passed the remit.