Secretary Is Woman

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29767, 9 March 1962, Page 8

Secretary Is Woman

The secretary of the federation and of the conference is a vivacious blonde. Mrs M. A. Rae, of Christchurch, is not the first woman to hold this responsible post, but she is one of the best-qualified secretaries the organisation has ever had.

Canterbury people know that Mrs Rae was appointed in 1960 to the executive of the Canterbury School Committees’ Association, that she is a compelling speaker, and that she presented impressive evidence on her own behalf to the Education Commission. They may not know of her earlier record which has stood her in good stead in the last year of national office. Mrs Rae was born in Hawkes Bay and attended the little Pikokino School. Moving to the Wellington area while quite young, she entered the Hutt Valley Primary School and then the Wellington East Girls’ College, where she was proud to win a silver medal for the most original literary contribution to the college magazine. The point here was that she won it as a fourth-former In competition against the whole school.

Choosing teaching as her career, Mrs Rae entered the Wellington Teachers’ College

ip 1941, was a representative in debating and won, a Apeaking "blue,’’ and at the same time took a bachelor of arts degree as a part-time university student, majoring in both history and philosophy (which then included psychology). Though a comparatively young member, Mrs Rae represented the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute at the national conference in Dunedin in 1948. In the same year she became senior, history mistress at Marsden College. Wellington. Married in 1952, Mrs Rae moved to Christchurch. (She believes her “wanderings” have helped her not to be parochial in any of her school committee affairs.) By 1958 she was on the executive of the Christchurch. East School Parent-Teacher Association and, the next year, she was .elected secretary-treasurer of the school committee, a post she has not forsaken in spite of the good excuse available tn this year of national office.

Mrs Rae is no theorist on education. She has three children—two at primary school and one at kindergarten. This’ national secretary knows children, knows teachers, knows schools, knows the university, and also knows her own mind.