REPORT SOUGHT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 12

REPORT SOUGHT

Staffing Of Schools “Members of the Postprimary Teachers’ Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute share a deep concern that the Minister of Education has failed to release the report on ancillary staffing in schools, in spite of repeated requests,” said Mr B. A. Smart, the regional president of the Post-primary Teachers’ Association, and Mr C. F. Billcliff, chairman of the combined committee branches of the New Zealand Educational Institute in Canterbury and Westland. “The report was the work of a committee recommended by the Commission on Education in 1960. The committee first met in December. 1962, and its report had been prepared by early 1964; but it has not yet been released. “To use able and informed men on intensive committee work and ignore their findings is bad economics. It is also not sound policy to pay salaries to teachers for performing routine chores. “The urgent need is to free teachers to teach. To a limited extent this can be done by providing laboratory assistants, extending the use of clerical assistants (particularly in district high schools) and extending the use of teachers’ aids. “The best interpretation that can be placed on the failure of the Minister to release the report is that his department is not adequately staffed at senior levels to give adequate consideration to the implications of the report,” they said.