SOLDIER TEACHERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1946, Page 9

SOLDIER TEACHERS

EFFECT OF MILITARY SERVICE SPECIAL GRADING BOARD (P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 8. Regulations providing for the setting up of a Soldier Teachers’ Grad-' ing Adjustment Board, to deal specificially with the grading of soldier teachers, were gazetted to-night. Commenting on the regulations, the Acting-Minister of Education (Mr. Nordmeyer) said: “Grading is a most important matter for teachers, as it determines their place on the grading list for appointment to higher positions in the service. During the hearing of appeals by the ordinary teachers’ grading appeal board in 1945, appeals were received from teachers who were former servicemen, who claimed that their grading' as teachers had been adversely affect- ' ed by service with the forces. In some cases the board felt some adjustment should be made, but it did not have power to make full adjustment within the provisions of the ordinary regulations. “A committee representing the de'partment and the New Zealand Educational Institute considered the matter and recommended that a special board be set up with power to go beyond the present regulations where it is shown that there has been hardship as a result of service in the forces. “An example of such hardship is that teachers not in the forces obtained war appointments and thus gained more rapid progress in grading, while teachers in the forces could not, of course, obtain such an adv antage.” . “In making provision lor this special board the Government desires it to hear the applications of soldierteachers both in the primary and post-primary services. The board will consist of three members —an independent chairman appointed by the. Minister of Education, a representative of the Education Department, and a representative of /the teachers. , Applications will not be treated as ordinary appeals, but the board will deal sympathetically with cases, ihe Government desires that any hardship with respect to grading that any teacher may have suffered through military service should be removed. This special 'provision is part of the undertaking given to teachers by the Minister of Education that they would be nlaced as close to the stage m their career, including the place on the grading list, they would have reached if military service had not intervened. ...