MALE TEACHERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1942, Page 6

MALE TEACHERS

DEPLETED RANKS

SCHOOL STAFFING PROBLEM

Schools will be reopening next week after the long summer holidays, the primary schools on Monday and most of the secondary schools and colleges on Tuesday. But the date of the reopening of one or two of the latter is still uncertain owing to the occupancy of the buildings by the military authorities.

Both primary and secondary schools (except those of the latter which are devoted exclusively to the education of girls) will find when they reopen next week that there have been many staff changes. The recent general mobilisation further aggravated an already serious position, and the maintenance of adequate teaching staffs has become a very difficult problem. Teachers ranging from the status of headmaster down to training college student have all been caught in the ballots. Although some retired male teachers are voluntarily coming back temporarily as a contribution to the war effort, there will not be nearly enough male teachers available during the coming school year, and the services of women teachers will have to be requisitioned to an increasing extent.

At its next meeting the Wellington Education Board will be apprised of the exact position in regard to its teaching staff. Approximately 100 of its teachers have already been released for service overseas. About the same number are on Territorial service, and quite a number more were called up in the recent ballot which included married men without children. SOLE TEACHER PROBLEM. It will be a difficult task to fill the vacancies thus caused and will necessitate the engagement of retired teachers and married women. One of the greatest difficulties will be the staffing of country schools, particularly

those with a sole teacher. In the past young male teachers have almost invariably been appointed to these positions, but young male teachers have become very, scarce and will no doubt become even scarcer in the near future.

Secondary schools are also faced with staffing difficulties. Some will be able to start the new school year with a fairly complete staff,' but there is no guarantee that this happy state of affairs will last for any length of time.

The position of male students at the Training College is the same as that of other young men of military age. They will be required for military service and their training as teachers will have to take second place. Some students due to start their training as teachers this year have been mobilised. The Training College, therefore, if it is to keep its students up to anything like previous numbers, will have to recruit more girls, but it does not seem likely that anything like an adequate number will be obtainable. MIGHT BE BETTER EMPLOYED, I Responsible bodies have complained more than once about teachers who have been called up being employed on jobs that could just as easily be filled by men without academic qualifications, and have asked o have these teachers released. But such complaints have had but small effect, military service being rated as of more importance than the education of the young. That the work of the schools is bound to suffer during the coming school year is obvious, but there is general agreement that the winning of the war is of paramount importance and must come first. In some quarters, howwer, there is a feeling that there is a limit to which the ranks of teachers should be depleted.