MANPOWER DIRECTION OF TEACHERS

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 21, 19 October 1944, Page 4

MANPOWER DIRECTION OF TEACHERS

Education Board Protest A protest at the proposed manpower •direction of teachers and training college students again this year during the Christmas vacation wag made by Mr. C. E. H, Ball at yesterday’s meeting of the Wellington Education Board. Students, at Victoria University College, he said, including a large number of teachers, had received notice that all students not permanently employed were to report to the manpower officer. Women students from 16 years upward had been informed that they had the option of working for one month as ward maids in a hospital or for three months in a tobacco factory. “Even students of 16 and 17 received these manpower directions,” said Mr. Ball, who said he did not know whether such directions were legal. Many of the students had had a hard year and needed a holiday. Had they not been working but living at home, they would not have eome within the scope of the manpower regulations till they were 20, in the case of women. The board’s teachers had also had a strenuous year’s work and it was not right that they should be manpowered as proposed. Last year, the board’s request for relief for teachers had been ignored, but the matter should be taken up again with the Minister of Manpower. The motion was seconded by Mr. G. W. Matthew, and carried, Mr. L. J. McDonald remarking that teachers were the only section of the community asked to work during annual leave.