Parents to babysit classes?

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 3

Parents to babysit classes?

Parents may be asked to help in secondary schools that are short of staff.

The president of the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, Mr Peter Allen, said the association’s executive met at the week-end and discussed ways to cope with the teacher shortage. “We have put together a number of responses for teachers to these shortages,” Mr Allen said. “One is to develop a series of suggestions about how parents or other people could be used to babysit classes that don’t have teachers available.” Another proposal was that teachers should be paid for extra duties, such as teaching extra classes.

The association will survey schools over the next few weeks to find how many positions are still vacant.

Mr Allen said executive members were concerned about a Government proposal to recruit overseas teachers. The association believed that this could cost up to $450,000. This money should be spent on incentive allowances to attract teachers to poorly staffed areas, and on increased allowances for trainees.

The teachers from overseas would have to be trained to fit into New Zealand schools, he said.

“That training will be done by teachers and schools which are still under stress and pressure.”