Music course quota mad, says acting principal

Press, 15 November 1984, Page 5

Music course quota mad, says acting principal

A one-year course for itinerant music teachers at Christchurch Teachers’ College has been given approval, but there may be no students to take it.

After giving approval for the course, the Education Department had said any applicants had to be taken from the secondary teacher trainee quota, said the college’s acting principal, Mr Reg Graham.

It was a “Catch-22” situation, he told the College Council at its meeting yesterday. “Final secondary quotas have not yet been assigned by the Minister, but it is unlikely the quota for music teachers will exceed 10 or 12 nationally. “We would want eight or 10 for the new course, which would leave about two for other music courses,” he said.

The situation was “mad.” Even the department’s officers in Wellington

agreed it was strange, said Mr Graham.

The department was prepared to provide staffing hours for the course, so that this was only an issue of quotas.

Most itinerant music teachers were part-time and travelled round schools offering help with musical instruments and voice training to individuals or small groups.

They were not certificated as teachers and the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association had been pushing for anyone who taught in schools to be certificated, Mr Graham said.

“This course is designed to pull in these people and give them a qualification equivalent to the present secondary teacher training,” he said.

"They are already teaching in schools so should not be part of the quotas,” he said.

The department was

making the wrong assumption that most of the people doing the course would be new to teaching. Quotas for secondary trainees were already tight, he said.

“The Minister has given that little bit of fat for the primary quotas by increasing them for next year, but I think he is robbing the secondary quotas to do it.

“It looks as though the secondary quotas will be even lower next year than for this year,” said Mr Graham.

The situation was worrying and there could be a shortage of secondary teachers next year.

Mr Graham, the director of secondary programmes at the college, was apB tinted acting principal on ovember 5.

The principal, Mr lan Stewart, has taken three months sick leave.