Training Of Teachers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 14

Training Of Teachers

In seeking the support of secondary school boards for its claims that Christchurch should have a separate secondary teachers’ college, the Canterbury region of the New Zealand Post-primary Teachers’ Association has not chosen the time well. Presumably the association believes it should try to rally support for its ideas before any decision is made on the control of the Christchurch Teachers’ College. The Christchurch Secondary Schools’ Council and several of its constituent boards prefer the reverse order; they have declined to discuss the P.P.T.A. circular publicly while widely-approved proposals For a teachers’ college council are before the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella). The association also would be wiser to wait for the major question of control to be settled. This newspaper happens to believe that unified control of teachers’ colleges is desirable. The prospect of a teachers’ college council for Christchurch (representing primary, secondary, and university teaching interests) promises integrated economical, and effective development of teacher-training services. Whether the primary and secondary divisions of training are separated administratively is another matter. A teachers’ college council could control two colleges as effectively as one; and nothing would be gained by setting up separate controlling bodies. Secondary teachers are more likely to achieve the status they seek by co-operating in the present efforts to unify and strengthen the teaching profession as a whole.