SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29075, 11 December 1959, Page 16

SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS

Minister’s Hint Of Direction

(New Zealand Press Association) PALMERSTON N„ Dec. 10. Rather than see education in New Zealand become a shambles through shortage of teachers, he would be prepared to use his authority to direct holders of studentship bursaries to those schools where teachers were most urgently needed, said the Minister of Education (Mr Skoglund) speaking at the prize-giving ceremony. of the Freyburg High School, Palmerston North, tonight. In Australia, he said, teachers had not the freedom enjoyed in New Zealand. Each state had a central authority which decided where a teacher should go, and if a teacher refused to accept a direction of the central authority, he would be out of a job. “I don’t want to bring direction of that nature into New Zealand,” said Mr Skoglund, “but I don’t want to see education become a shambles. It is my duty to see that there are teachers in the schools, and I might have to use authority to see that there are. “We wont shirk it. If we can’t get the teachers, then we will do something to see that our young people receive an education." Mr Skoglund referred to the difficulties that were created through so many New Zealand teachers going overseas. He quoted the case of one school which had allowed four members of its staff to go. to England in a single year. “When there is a desperate shortage of teachers,” he said, “those who want to go to England should be prepared to wait a few years and see that young people in New Zealand get the education they need and are entitled to.”