Move For Reduction In Primary Classes

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 26

Move For Reduction In Primary Classes

( (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 2.

“Teachers in the primary service recognise the need to reduce class sizes and to improve working conditions in all sections of the teaching service,” the national president of the Educational Institute (Mr L. E. Patchett) said today.

The national executive, at its meeting in Wellington last week, supported representations by colleagues in the P.P.T.A. for the recognition

of improved staffing ratios and for vigorous recruitment to overcome the shortage of teachers, he said. “We emphasise that the reduction of class size in the primary service is also an urgently needed reform,” said Mr Patchett. “More than half the pupils in the primary service, more than 200,000 children, are in classes larger than 35, and more than 80,000 are in classes larger than 40. They spend every hour of the school year in these over-large classes where they cannot receive the individual attention essential for young children who will hold responsible positions in the twenty-first century. “The number of over-large classes has been steadily reduced in recent years, but while so many children are deprived of reasonable educational opportunities, New Zealanders cannot be satisfied that the primary service is properly staffed,” he said.