Indication given on teaching bond

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 15

Indication given on teaching bond

(From our education reporter)

HAMILTON, May 20

Indications that an end may be in sight to the controversial Government teaching bond were given by the Minister of Education (Mr Taiboys) at the opening of the conference of the Student Teachers’ Association.

The association was the body largely responsible for the national anti-bond campaign conducted last year at the time when secondary school pupils were being interviewed for entry to the country’s 10 teacher colleges. Mr Taiboys told delegates at the three-day S.T.A.N.Z. conference that the campaign had not dissuaded young people from entering the teaching profession. There had, in fact, been an increase in the national quota. There was surprise that the quota was filled, he said. “And we were intensely interested to find that there were 10 per cent more people applying who had university entrance,” he said. “This indicates to me that we might be approaching the time when we can get rid of the bond,” Mr Taiboys said. The over-subscription last year on teachers’ college applications ahd the increase to 70 per cent of applicants with university entrance were

important facts, Mr Taiboys said.

“I hope that in the light of the evidence you would, as an association, drop the antibond campaign,” he said. Mr Taiboys said that the bond was closely linked with the obligation which students had to society where there was a sum of $7OOO spent by the taxpayer on each teachei trained.