EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 13 April 1934, Page 4

EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS

In a recent statement the Chief Inspector of Schools (iDr. J. W. Mdlraith) praised the working of the unemployed | teachers’ relief scheme. Satisfaction 1 with the scheme appears to be general j and the Hon. Hi. Masters, Minister of Education, has been deservedly cony

gratnlnited upon the improvement which has been brought, about, not only in the condition! of unemployed touchers, but; in the 'schools thomsoUves. Under the former rationing ..scheme, whereby teachers were employed ip term ittent.lv, being displaced a.t the epd of a term by another unemployed teacher, both teacher amt children were suffering the obvious disadvantages of the break in continuity. Now the scheme is achieving its main object (apart of course from the purely economic one of finding employment) of keeping the teachers in touch with their chosen work and thus preventing them from becoming stale. Moreover, it has enabled a more generous staffing of the schools, a reduction in the size of classes which had been far too unwieldy, and thereby a. closer supervision of the work of individual children. It is unfortuhajte that the stress of the times has reduced the opportunities of younger teachers of obtaining immediate permanent appointments; because gaps which normally occur through retirements and marriages are nob opening up as quickly as formerly,'the rate of absorption must, necessarily he .slower. In the meantime if i<s~gra tifying to know that the service is at Jooist not .suffering from lack of teachers and that to that extent the children are being given the attention to which they are entitled. But the .scheme now in operation offers wider isc-cpe than merely affording economic: relief to unemployed teachers and lightening the burden of the permanent .staff. It may even prove a blessing if it discovers, in the departure from precedent that ft necessarily involves, new and moira effective methods of teaching, and perhaps of securing more active and real co-operation between the administrative and teaching sides of the .service. . Then out of economic necessity may have sprung an experiment the .fruits of which will be of lasting value.