TEACHING PROFESSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23281, 25 February 1939, Page 14

TEACHING PROFESSION

MARRIED WOMEN'S POSITION BARRING WAY OF OTHERS [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] INVERCARGILL, Friday A decision to join with other education boards in protesting against the amendment to the Education Act giving married women teachers equal rights for appointments was made at a meeting of the Southland Board today. The motion emhodied a request that the former system, providing; boards with discretionary power in the appointment of married women teachers, be reverted to. Mr. W. Bell said that under the present regulations married women teachers would get appointments because they had the grading and younger teachers were likely to be penalised. It was not fair to young people making the teaching profession their life's work. There was nothing under the present regulations to prevent women living in town applying for positions in city schools and in the majority of cases they would get the appointments because of their grading. Some women applied for positions just to duplicate their income. Hn the past, when the board had discretionary power, any cases of hardship were treated quite liberally. The chairman, Mr. S. Rice, said they were endeavouring to encourage younger men of the right type to take up the teaching profession and at the same time they were shutting the door by allowing married women to apply for positions which normally would be occupied by young men. He had every sympathy with married women who had husbands incapable of earning a living, and it was not their intention to inflict hardship on married women who really needed assistance. There actually was nothing in the Act to prevent a husband and wife teaching in the same school 1