Teacher-mobility rules changed

Press, 8 July 1982, Page 4

Teacher-mobility rules changed

Complaints to the Human Rights Commission have caused the Education Department to change its rules for the granting of “immobility” to its bonded teachers. When teacher trainees are bonded to the department they agree to accept posts in any part of New Zealand. Exemptions are granted if trainees or teachers can show they are "immobile” according to the department’s criteria. The complaints were about the criteria: married women or women whose, marriage was impeilding qualified, but men in the same circumstances did not. Men were usually denied immobility. Another complaint was that de facto relationships were ignored.

The Education Department's director of personnel, Mr J. H. Young, said from Wellington yesterday that the criteria had been changed to meet the requirements of the Human Rights Commission Act. “The decisions on immobility will be made on the grounds of dependence rather than on the grounds of sex or status,” he said. “It will depend on whether people have dependants who ; would be placed in difficulty if they were forced to move.” , .

The change was made .after the department had started its 1983 classifications, but new application forms were sent out and reclassification under the hew rules has begun.