Bond On Teachers Called Unfair

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 23

Bond On Teachers Called Unfair

(New Zealand Press A:

WELLINGTON, May 9.

The five-year teaching bond on young teachers was criticised as an unfair restriction of the individual at the Education Institutes’ annual meeting, in Wellington today.

The bond was acting as a deterrent to recruitment, said Mr R. W. Whyte, a Wellington delegate. Young people were unwilling to enter teaching with the bond over their heads.

A North Canterbury delegate, Mr G. S. Maister, said young people who found themselves genuinely unsuited to teaching were being held by bonding. This was quite wrong, be said. On the other hand, bonding ensured that education boards found positions for teachers. An Auckland member of the national executive, Mr H. M. Hunter, said that some bonded teachers in Auckland were placed in positions where they were miserable. The incoming vice-presi-dent, Mr J. Dwyer, said he had eome to support the bond. Unemployment was a “social cancer” and he could

not remove from young teachers the promise of a period of ensured employment. No action was taken on a Wairarapa remit that the institute withdraw its support of the bond.