THE PRESS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1981. Too many teachers?

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 12

THE PRESS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1981. Too many teachers?

The Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, announced earlier this month that the numbers of students who would be accepted for training at the country’s teachers’ colleges next year would be, sharply reduced. He brought to the surface a problem that should have been faced more forthrightly sooner than this. For some time now, the colleges have , been training too many teachers for. too few pupils. The numbers of primary school pupils in New Zealand have been declining from a peak in 1975-76 and, unless there is a marked, and unexpected, reversal of the decline in the birth rate, the decline of numbers of children to be taught can be expected to continue for some time. The number of teachers being trained each year has been reduced somewhat over the past decade or so, but not sufficiently to avert the mounting surplus of teachers. There are already too many teachers chasing too few jobs and some trainee teachers are graduating, only to find no jobs are available for them, even though they are bonded to teach for a certain period. This immediate surplus of teachers is evidence that the cuts that the Minister has announced for next year are overdue. The problem has, of course, been made more severe because more trained teachers than before have been remaining in service. Even if the enrolment of trainee teachers had been cut in previous years in direct proportion to the decline in the numbers of pupils, some surplus of teachers would have developed for this reason. The Government and the Department of Education could not fairly be expected to have anticipated this tendency for more teachers to stay in the profession. This might suggest to some that, in order to give young, newly trained teachers a fair start at the beginning of their professional lives, older teachers sh ould be discouraged from remaining in or returning to teaching. Even if this were possible, it would probably be unwise. The country will get a better “return” on the money it has invested in past years in teacher training, and possibly better teaching as well, from more experienced, mature people, if teachers are encouraged to stay in the profession or to return to it. Both the present surplus of teachers and any increase in the surplus that may result from a reluctance to scale down the output of the colleges could be absorbed by measures that have much to commend them. The country’s education system is failing in some respects; in particular, it has been failing to meet the needs of identifiable groups of pupils who leave school early or leave without gaining any qualification or skill to equip them for

employment. An ample supply of teachers should offer opportunities to remedy some defects in the country's education system. The teacher-pupil ratio could be further lowered and additional specialist support services, provided, especially in schools where large numbers of pupils are known to have specific problems. To meet these problems, teachers might have to be released from classroom duties in greater numbers, and for longer periods, for specialised training. Such a plan must add to an education bill that is already high; yet it might bring benefits and save costs elsewhere if the additional teaching power is well used. There will be a point of diminishing returns eventually for such improvements in . the education system; the benefits will at some point be too small to justify the added .costs. The country must eventually grasp the nettle and acknowledge that the surplus of teachers has been produced by a system that has become too big for the need it has to serve. Even with changes in their functions, the training colleges cannot continue at their present number and size if the demand for teachers continues to decline. Some trimming, and even outright closures, must be faced as the facts about the number of pupils change. While it is desirable dnot to upset people at present employed in the training colleges unduly, it is just as undesirable to turn out fresh young teachers who can find no job for which they have been trained. It will be a wasteful use of resources for the country to continue to spend large sums of money to train teachers who are not really needed, either because the number of pupils has dropped or because a limit has been reached in the improvement to be gained from reducing the size of classes. The Government must aim to get the best possible education system for the lowest possible expenditure and this would seem to require a gradual scaling down of teacher training colleges. To avoid upsetting the lives of either present college staff or young people who have been planning their careers around a reasonable expectation that they would be accepted for teacher training, this adjustment will have to. be gradual. It is a matter for regret that the process was not set more vigorously in motion when it became apparent ’that school rolls would decline. As it is, the abrupt announcement of dramatic cuts in next year’s teacher trainee quotas, even though accompanied by assurances that the training colleges would be left next year much as they have been in the past, has created-an alarmist atmosphere. This atmosphere is going to make scaling down the training system all the more difficult.