Plan Going Before Cabinet Soon

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30569, 12 October 1964, Page 3

Plan Going Before Cabinet Soon

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, Oct. 11. A complete scheme for the three-year teacher training course will be ready within three weeks and placed before the Cabinet. The date of the start of the course will be decided before the end of the year. The Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella), in Hamilton to attend an executive committee meeting of the Waikato division of the National Party, said yesterday that departmental officers were sifting through the scheme now. “This is a complicated scheme, but planning is going forward well,” he said. Teaching organisations

were naturally disappointed that the scheme could not be started in 1965. “The course means a lot to them and it will be of tremendous benefit to children and to the standard of teachers.” Commenting on the criticism he had received from teaching bodies he said he would be criticised just as much if the introduction of the course caused a teacher shortage. “This course is dear to my heart too, but unless we are careful there will be a teacher shortage. The teaching bodies have not realised the administration problems.” He said these organisations could not have access to the relevant information over the whole of the country and did not realise the implications of planning for the future. Other aspects of teaching had to be considered at the

same time, such as the attack on remedial teaching, the class size situation, and the elimination of relieving teachers in schools. “At the same time we want to raise the standard of entry into teaching and continue to meet the demand for teachers. We can’t put these problems aside during the transition period and deal with them afterwards.” The role of technical schools throughout New Zealand was to provide the country with multi-course secondary schools.

A tremendous amount of work had been done. In the major centres, such as Hamilton, trade training and higher technical teaching would be undertaken by technological institutes and the present technical colleges would provide complete secondary education with a technical bias.

Once bonding has come into operation, Mr Kinsella said, the problem of filling country schools with permanent teachers would be solved. The bonding system provides that first-year teachers who cannot get the positions th'y want will be directed to vacancies by their employing board. Mr Kinsella said this system would completely remove the need for relieving teachers. He said his department was. desperately worried at the present situation where many positions were filled by relieving teachers. “The estimated shortage of primary teachers for permanent positions is 600,” he said. “This is just another aspect which has to be watched as far as the threeyear training course is concerned."