Teachers' College Status

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30202, 6 August 1963, Page 14

Teachers' College Status

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Aug. 5. With the extension of the training course from two to three years there was no doubt that the work of primary teachers’ colleges would become more genuinely a part of higher education in New Zealand, said the Minister of Education (Mr Tennent) today.

“We will have a concept of teacher training as higher education,” he said, “and the relationships between universities and our teachers' colleges will become even closer."

Mr Tennent officially open, ed the North Shore Teachers’ College in temporary premises in Mount Roskill. Mr Tennent said the open-

ing of the North Shore college was the first step of the greatest development programme in higher education ever seen in the country. Over the next 10 years five new training colleges would be built and existing ones considerably enlarged.

The number of primary school pupils continued to expand, said Mr Tennent. Just more than 38.000 pupils left school at the end of last year, but nearly 60,000 began school for the first time at the beginning of this year. Three years ago the number of training college recruits was 1500, said Mr Tennent. This year 1998 were accepted, and for 1964, with endorsed school certificate as the minimum entrance standard, it was hoped to get 2200 "If we can get more, so much the better,” he said “We will not turn any of them away.”

Mr Tennent said he was watching recruitment numbers closely and would not rest until the minimum en-

trance standard was university entrance. “I would like to raise the entrance standard to university entrance now,” he said, “but we have not quite overcome the teacher shortage and cannot afford to make it any worse.”

The Government had accepted responsibility for building hostel accommodation for training college students because it was a very important part of the system, said Mr Tennent. For some reason the churches and other religious organisations, with • few exceptions, had not shown much interest in the provision of it.

Tentative proposals for university halls of residence had been discussed with various church organisations. If carried out these would provide extra accommodation for 1750 university students. “The provision of all this

accommodation for both training colleges and universities as planned at present will cost about £37 million,” he said.