Fewer selected for teacher training

Press, 7 September 1976, Page 3

Fewer selected for teacher training

Applicants to enrol at teachers’ colleges throughout the country can expect to be turned away in greater numbers than last year. It is widely agreed that the Department of Education will drop its intakes for primary and pre-school training on last year’s figures. In Christchurch last year about 1000 persons applied for entrance to these divisions at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, where the quota was set at 330. This year about the same number is expected to apply, but the quota will be lower; one spokesman suggests 285, a percentage drop that will be duplicated, no doubt, in all of the seven teachers’ colleges in the country. There are several reasons for the smaller intake* longej

retention of teachers, a level-; ling off of numbers of child-! ren at school, the return of larger numbers of married women to teaching after families are off their hands, and ;the greater numbers of young married woman opting to I stay with the profession ’rather than leave it to raise a family. The Department of Education annually adjusted its quotas to match demand in the schools at a period three years in the future. This was a precaution against overrecruitment — a problem which Britain was now suffering — and which the United States invited by opening its teacher training courses to anyone academically qualified. the levelling of school population was expected to last about four years, and

| was already being felt in priImary schools, said the Regional Superintendent of Education (Mr R. C. Roy). I One-third of applicants for] ,(primary and pre-schooli ~ courses at the Christchurch , Teachers' College next vear . have had some time away from school, either working . or getting tertiary education. The selection committe of i the Education Board has he-1 t gun assessing applications, s Interviews will be given to -(those applicants who satisfy i: basic requirements. “Applicants who do not > possess the minimum qualifici ations and who have been ; deemed ‘unsuitable for tea- ■ jcher training’ will be notified' : shortly that their applications 1 have not been successful," isaid a Statement from the i i board.. 4