STUDENT TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 269, 9 August 1943, Page 6

STUDENT TEACHERS

Partial Exemption From Armed Service Asked Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, August 7., ■'Exemption from unilitary service lor student teachers till they had had sufficient training to enable them to resume teaching after the war was sought by the soldiers’ association of the Auckland Teachers’ Training College, in a letter forwarded to the Auckland Education Board by the local branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute, lhe soldiers’ association was formed in the college <by men who had returned from service to complete courses at the Training College. It asked the education board to lodge appeals for those soldier student teachers who, on attaining the age of 21, had not. completed the minimum training period. A request , was also made that soldier students should be graded xyitn students who entered the Training College as their contemporaries, and whose courses had not been interrupted by war service. The principal of the college, Mr. D. M. Rae, suggested that the board pass on the request to the Education Department. Soldier teachers, he said, would be outstripped in grading t>y their contemporaries unless some such scheme were inaugurated. Another request was that soldier students should be granted the same pay as was earned by those whose courses had been unbroken by military service. Mr. line said that students who entered the college in 1941 and had one years military service has now returned as sec-ond-year students drawing ordinary students’ pay. Their contemporaries who did not go to camp were now probationary assistants in schools receiving £155 a year, plus cost of living. The request was framed to obviate such an anomaly. The board agreed to forward the requests to the‘department, expressing its approval. It was decided to recommend that, for superannuation purposes, war service should be counted as double the corresponding teaching service, so thatreturned soldier teachers might be able tc retire before they were broken men.