‘Inhumane’ treatment of 1300 teachers alleged.

Press, 12 November 1981, Page 3

‘Inhumane’ treatment of 1300 teachers alleged.

PA Auckland About 1300 primary teachers and intermediate schoolteachers in the Auckland region still do not know whether they will have jobs next year, the Auckland Education Board was told yesterday. A member of the board, Mr B. Dynes, said it was “time we started to talk to these people. They are human beings and are deserving of better. They are being treated in a most thoughtless and inhumane way.” Only about half of the 1300

would find teaching jobs next year, he said. Mr Dynes was concerned that the board’s staffing officer was still without information from the Education Department in Wellington on the supply and demand of first-year and second-year teachers who could be directed to positions. “I am afraid that we will find there will be a shortage of teachers in places such as Southland and a surplus in Auckland. “This is inevitable because of the bungling way in which

the Education Department approaches this task." The first-year and secondyear teachers were the most mobile people available in the profession. It would be more humane or them to be sent south board by board, rather than send them from Northland to schools in the “freezing south,” said Mr Dynes. The chairman of the board, Mr R. Taylor, agreed that no information had been received from the department about the supply of teachers.