CHAOTIC CONDITIONS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 October 1934, Page 6

CHAOTIC CONDITIONS

RESULT OF GRADING SCHOOLS. EDUCATIONAL”INSTITUTE'S COMPLAINT. (By TeJegrapD— rrw» Ajnodatlon.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 24. Complaint is made by the New Zealand Educational Institute, and supported by figures supplied by education boards, that chaotic conditions are resulting from the down-grading of schools necessitated chiefly by the exclusion of five-year-old children from the primary schools. Education boards, while declining to be associated with the Educational Institute •in the movement of protest, have nevertheless decided that the position is serious enough to warrant holding a conference at Wollingtonjto consider the position with a view to making representations ito the Government on the question. The Prime Minister, in a statement in the House on Tuesday, said the upgrading of certain schools would balance. the results of the down-grading of others. This statement is challenged by the New Zealand Educational Institute wllh figures compiled from information supplied by education boards.

The position as from February next, according to returns which have come to hand, is as follows: “In the aggregate 179 schools will be downgraded throughout the country in February next; 54 assistants will receive notice of dismissal; 99 head and sole teachers will be in the position of being overpaid and will, unless they can find other positions within the next 12 months, all suffer salary reductions; 21 overpaid as from the last downgrading will be reduced in salary in February.

The institute complains that teachers who have already suffered through salary cuts are being additionally penalised by circumstances beyond their control. 'One Wellington headmaster, it is pointed out, is threatened with a drop in hi 3 salary through down-grad-ing to a point below what he was receiving 15 years ago.