POSITIONS FOR WOMEN

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29273, 3 August 1960, Page 8

POSITIONS FOR WOMEN

Opportunities Discussed

The lack of senior positions for women did not tend to attract highly-qualified women to the service, the Christchurch Girls’ High School branch of the Postprimary Teachers’ Association said to the Education Commission yesterday. , Appointments to the inspectorate (except in home science) were “given” to men; in cb-educational schools most positions of responsibility were advertised for men only; and the present policy of making most new schools coeducational would aggravate this. The branch held that there was a strong demand for single-sex schools which , was being “jgnored.” Country Service Present country service regula\ tions were a deterrent to people considering entering the service. Young teachers were sometimes deterred by excessive extracurricular duties. A modification of the free textbook scheme which would put books back under the management of booksellers and teachers back in the classroom was most desirable. “Compression of service” (whereby a teacher retiring was not given full credit for yearn of service before 1953) did not encourage married and older women teachers to re-enter the profession. Several members of the commission claimed that women did not apply for senior positions. ‘■Why don’t they apply?” asked Miss S. G. Balkind, who presented the evidence.

Size Of Schools Any simple and universal formula for the size of secondary schools in this country was “strongly deprecated” in evidence to the Education Commission by the Post-primary Teachers’ Association. It believes that each area involves a piece of unique and important “social engineering.” In the largest centres of population there were, for the most part, multi-course co-education schools scattered throughout the urban area. Most were larger than the Education Department viewed with equanimity, the association said. Yet it was clear that, unless they were sited absurdly close, many of them would get bigger yet because of density of population, larger families, and the longer stay at school. This situation would demand ■ staffing arrangements new to this country. Apart from the three senior teachers there would almost 1 certainly need to be an entitlei ment of teachers whose role would almost. wholly be handling personal problems and adjustment of the individual to the large community.