No work for 50 teachers

Press, 2 February 1982, Page 7

No work for 50 teachers

PA Wellington About 50 kindergartenteacher graduates, represening a third of last year’s total number of such graduates, could be unemployed when kindergartens reopen next week, according to the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Teachers’ Association. It said that a survey of kindergarten-teacher graduates had shown that between 50 and 60 trained teachers were still unsure about jobs for 1982.

The association president, Ms Jean Pearson, said that there had been few job vacancies and that in some areas up to 2ff applicants had applied for one position.

the association would monitor the situation and would urge the Department of Education to find employment in kindergartens for these graduates. The department’s director of personnel, Mr John Young, said that he did not recall any approach from the association or the New Zealand Free Kindergarten Union (the employing body). About 50 unemployed primary-school teachers have picketed the head office of their association, the Educational Institute, which, they asserted, has deserted them.

The teachers, who have at some time broken their service, putting themselves behind in job placement, said that the institute had negotiated new employment criteria and in doing so. had sold out on many teachers. A spokesman for the group, Mr Paul Swain, said that the institute’s executive had failed to consult the organisation’s members and

that many of the members who were now affected were unaware of the change in regulations. Mr Swain, who is a fourthyear teacher, said that he was now considered a oneyear teacher under the new criteria. Only his experience last year, when he had taught at the Cardinal McKeefry and Wadestown schools, was counted as “continuous service.”

The institute’s president, ? Mr David Stewart, said that .; Mr Swain was “uninformed.” | “For many weeks we have i been talking about the unemployed teachers and we have | not differentiated between I those with continuous and | broken service,” he said. t The institute felt that teachers with broken service j had an equal place in the • system and the institute had J repeatedly sought to use the ? surplus teachers to advan- i tage in reducing class size ’ and for remedial work. i