“Heartening” Features In Teacher Recruitment

Press, Volume C, Issue 29623, 20 September 1961, Page 14

“Heartening” Features In Teacher Recruitment

There are several hearten, ing features about recruitment of teachers for the primary service in Canterbury and Westland this month, according to education officials in Christchurch.

The number of applicants is slightly lower than last year, but qualifications are better. Whereas many were sitting the school certificate examination in previous years of application, more than four-fifths this year have this minimum qualification already behind them. In other years there have been fixed district quotas, and sometimes likely candidates have had to be rejected. The Canterbury Education Board has been authorised this year to accept between 215 and 250 students (compared with about 220 previously) and, although the Christchurch Teachers’ College would be near enough to full at the lower limit, both the board and the college are determined to pack in as many trainees as possible. A proviso has been made that some students accepted may have to go to other colleges. In earlier years there has been a considerable wastage of potential trainees between the time they were interviewed and their advice of acceptance to college. Other employers, hot on the track

of school leavers with school certificate, have snapped up staff in this interval.

This year the Canterbury Education Board has stepped up its competition by conducting interviews by selection committees a month earlier than usual and advising the most suitable candidates of acceptance before they leave the building. Under this . new system the Canterbury Education Board’s selection committees interviewed 252 candidates in Christchurch a week ago. and 18 in Greymouth last Monday, and 76 will be seen in Timaru next Monday. Every candidate accepted will be advised by early October, compared with or even December in some other years.

The response had therefore been generally good in al! re. spects, said the board’s secretary-manager (Mr W. P. Spencer) when he gave all this information yesterday. The board was well aware of the need to increase recruitment to overcome the teacher shortage and, ultimately, to reduce the size of classes; but it would be seen that Christchurch training facilities would be taxed to the limit with a good class of entrant next year.