“A SLIGHT TO WOMEN"

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11522, 18 May 1923, Page 6

“A SLIGHT TO WOMEN"

TRAINING COLLEGE APPOINTMENT. MISS HETHERINGTON RESIGNS. When tendering her resignation from the position of lecturer at the "Wellington Training College, Miss Jessie 1. Hetkerington, M.A., wrote: — “My relations with the Board of Education have always been most cordial, .and it is with regret that I sever so abruptly my connection with them and with the institution to whose interests I have entirely devoted myself during the last eight years. This step is, however, taken to mark the strength of my conviction that in again refusing to appoint a woman to the vice-principalship of the Training College, the best interests of that institution and of the profession in general are being disregarded. To repeat the words in which I have placed the position before the board: ‘Tho proportion of women students to men students at the Training College is at present 210 to 75, and must always, in accordance with the very requirements of the profession, preponderate considerably. These students are in process of being trained for one of the most important spheres in life which a woman can occupy. Their full sense of the dignity, possibilities, and responsibility of their calling can nover be aroused when again and again they see high qualifications, ability, and' devotion to educational progress, in their own sex, ignored in the appointments to the a<N , ministrative positions in their own in--1 stitutions. “Tho position of vice-principal is one that can ho, and should be, occupied by a woman, and the neglect to ap- ; point one to it seems to me a direct slight to all the women at present in the profession, and also to those whi are now preparing to enter it.”