Talks On Studentships

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31162, 12 September 1966, Page 18

Talks On Studentships

WELLINGTON, Sept. 11.

Although the PostPrimary Teachers’ Association fully supported the studentship scheme as a valuable recruitment measure, it thought the understandable reluctance of some students to commit themselves to a teaching career while still at school had to be taken into account, the president of the association (Mr J. S. Webster) said yesterday.

He had been invited to comment on remarks by the headmistress of the Epsom Girls’ Grammar School (Miss M. F. E. Adams) that girls “did not want to put themselves under a moral obligation to the State to take up teaching if they accepted a teaching studentship to a university. “Miss Adams’s remarks do reflect a trend among upper sixth-form students, both boys and girls,” said Mr Webster.

“There has become an awareness of many career possibilities for graduates, and as acceptance of a teaching studentship is accompanied by bonding for a number of years, school pupils have become noticeably reluctant to apply for them. “The Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, however,

fully supports the studentship scheme as a valuable recruitment measure and is discussing with the Education Department ways in which it may be made more attractive.

“The association is proposing that students who have not taken up studentships but who later decide to enter teaching should be paid the same amount of money they would have received under the studentship.

“The secondary profession is desperately short of graduates and we are confident that this measure would be effective in recruiting teachers from that very large group of university graduates who complete their degrees without having decided on a career.”