Backing for trainees’ salaries

Press, 11 September 1986, Page 7

Backing for trainees’ salaries

The Christchurch Teachers’ College Council has again backed calls for a salary for teacher trainees. Christchurch trainees decided by a referendum in July not to take part in any recruitment campaigns until they were recognised as State employees and paid a salary. The trainees’ association also opposed any form of open entry into teachers’ colleges, and asked that prospective trainees not be accepted for college straightWrom the sixth form. <

At the council’s meeting yesterday, the trainees’ representative, Mr Steve May, asked the council to support the last two principles. Mr May said the Education Department’s priority was to fill teachers’ college quotas. As this was proving difficult, it seemed the department was resorting to “dubious means,” he said. Suggestions have been made that the first year of a teachers’ college course should be open to all. Selection of those to continue would then be

made at the end of the year. Mr May said this was a "fundamental attack” on the role of teachers’ colleges. “The association has been consistently arguing that we, as teacher trainees, are Government employees. Open entry is an effective way to bypass that by relegating us to the role of tertiary students,” he said. "As much as we can offer to other tertiary institutions and be involved in the tertiary area, we anft a specific training centre, and as such we

should be recognised.” Open entry would deter older trainees, he said. They would not want to spend a year on a bursary if they had no guarantee of being accepted for further training. Quotas also should not be filled by recruiting more young people straight from school, as many would not have the maturity needed for teaching, he said. Several council members said that, while they supported the trainees’ call for a salary they could not totallyq oppose

open entry. Mr David Waghorn said open entry could work to the benefit of people who did not do well in interviews, because of their background. “We would like to see an experiment carried out at one of the colleges to see if we could pick up more people from more diverse backgrounds.” At the same time, he said, it was obvious that people from poorer background were not applying for teachers’ college because they could not afford it.