SCHOOL TEACHING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 30 September 1944, Page 5

SCHOOL TEACHING

REQUEST FOR CLASSIFICATION AS ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, Sept. 29. A request that sympathetic consideration be given to the question of including school teaching in the list of essential industries was contained in an urgent question addressed to the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives by Mr D. W. Coleman (Government. Gisborne) with whom were associated Messrs A. E. Armstrong (Government, Napier) and E. L. Cullen (Government, Hawkes Bay). The question also asked the Prime Minister whether sympathetic consideration would be given to those teachers who returned from the Pacific and undertook to accept employment in an essential industry; and to the release of those teachers who were on military service in New Zealand and who were not graded as medically fit for overseas service so that they could return to school teaching. A note to the question stated that it was of vital importance that schools should be kept fully and efficiently staffed. In his reply the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) said he would be pleased to arrange for the Minister of Education (Mr Mason) and the Minister of National Service (Mr McLagan) to confer and, in view of the recent readjustments of the men in the services, give consideration to the matter of facilitating the return to their profession of school teachers situated as stated in the question. They would also confer as to the practicability of including school teaching in the list of essential industries.