Teachers await approval

Press, 13 December 1989, Page 38

Teachers await approval

Teachers’ college graduates and boards of trustees are still waiting to hear if a scheme allowing schools to employ first-year teachers above their normal staffing requirement will go ahead. Teachers’ college students due to take up first-year teaching posts next year were told in July that only half the 900 students could be guaranteed a “captured” position. In October a scheme for above-scheduled positions was approved by the Minister of Education, Mr Goff. Under the scheme schools would be able to supply to appoint firstyear teachers in anticipation of a suitable vacancy arising for them to fill. The aim of the scheme was to put teachers’ college graduates in positions that would enable them to become certificated teachers and also to reduce high teacher-pupil ratios in some schools. The manager of the Ministry of Education’s policy division, Mr Eddie Clark, said the scheme was due to go before the Cabinet next week He said 400 schools had applied to be part of the scheme.