APPEALS FOR TEACHERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1942, Page 4

APPEALS FOR TEACHERS

The acute and increasing shortage of teachers is a subject which at every meeting of educational bodies is ventilated ill one form or another. The meeting yesterday of the Wellington Colleges Board of Governors was no exception. To begin with,-a confidential memorandum .from (the Education Department was considered, and board members agreed that appeals should be made, at any rate for key men, as secondary education was being threatened. ■

Later in the meeting the report of Mr F. M. Renner, principal of Rongotai College, drew. attention to the fact that his school had been particularly hard hit. Seventeen masters in the last 19 months had left, two of them being key men, and there was a prospect of tw.o other key men going. This state of affairs jeopardised the matriculation chances, of the boys, and Mr. Renner suggested that it was time the manpower committees realised that possibly a man by remaining in his job as a teacher might be making a better contribution to the war effort than by being drafted into the armed forces. To neglect education, he pointed out, was to run the risk of losing the peace.

The chairman of the board, Mr. W. V. Dyer, said that in the case of appeals he thought each case should be treated on its merits. There might be a change in the official policy so as to prevent any more schools being closed.