1:35 Ratio ‘Out Of Question'

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 32

1:35 Ratio ‘Out Of Question '

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 6. The implementation of the “one teacher to 35 pupils’’ schedule was quite out of the question at present, the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) said today at the Educational Institute conference.

Mr Kinsella said the need to train an additional 2000 teachers to permit students to remain a year longer at college obviously affected the time and rate of progress towards the objective of new

staffing schedules with the 1:35 teacher-pupil ratio. Nevertheless. the new schedules gave better teacherpupil ratios in schools with a high proportion of large classes. For the first time in New Zealand’s history, probationary assistants had classes with a maximum of 30 pupils, without overloading the classes of other teachers on the staff.

The flexibility of the schedules, and the introduction of the initial appointments scheme, enabled better use of the total supply of teachers, and would hasten the day—some time in the 1970 s—when the Government’s objective of classes with a maximum of 35 pupils would be attained. “At present we are continuing to reduce the proportion of over-large classes,” said Mr Kinsella, i “The proportion s classes over 40 dropped from more than 23 per cent in 1962 to below 15 per cent in 1967. At the other end of the scale, the proportion of 35 or less rose in the same short period from 48.7 per cent to 53 per cent.

“This is a significant gain in a short period when the priority has been not to smaller classes, but to longer training.”