WOMEN TEACHERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24103, 23 October 1941, Page 8

WOMEN TEACHERS

USE IN BOYS' SCHOOLS

PRINCIPALS FAVOUR IDEA

A circular letter concerning the shortage of staff in secondary schools, and emphasising in particular the difficulty in replacing masters of boys' schools who had been called up for war service, was received at yesterday's meeting of the Auckland Grammar School Board of Governors. The suggestion was made by the Education Department that, in mixed schools greater use might be made of women teachers, and that experienced women teachers could be appointed to the staffs of boys' colleges. It was stated that already one boys' school in the Dominion had a woman on its staff, while during the last war there were as many as seven women teachers at one institution.

Comment by the principals of the grammar schools was also read to the meeting. Mr. F. W. Gamble, headmaster of Mount Albert Grammar School, considered there was little prospect of having to take such a course for the next year at least. He considered it would be of benefit to boys' schools to have experienced women on the staff, but that the removal of their better teachers might not be favourablo to the girls' colleges. The headmistress of the Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Miss A. L. Loudon, considered it a sane and practicable idea, while Mr. K. J. Dellow, of Takapuna, who controls a mixed school, wrote that in future he thought positions should be advertised as open to men or women.